There are times in our lives when we simply feel overwhelmed. We are always hearing people say that God won’t allow more than we can handle to come into our lives, but the truth is that He often allows more than we can handle. Our loving God intentionally allows us to feel overwhelmed to teach us how to be overshadowed when we feel overwhelmed. He wants us to learn how to stop trying to handle things so that we discover the supernatural adventure of allowing Him to handle things instead.
In Luke 1 when the Archangel Gabriel announced to a young Jewish girl, who had never been with a man, that she was the one that God had chosen to give birth to the long hoped for Messiah, she felt overwhelmed. Her first response was to ask “how” in light of the fact that she was a virgin. It’s important to note that she didn’t ask why. When you spend your energy asking why because you don’t like what’s happening, you’ll never move into the supernatural realm of God’s overshadowing ability. The Lord’ answer to her “how” question was to tell her that the Holy Spirit was going to come upon her and that the POWER (ability) of the Most High (the word here is simply The Highest, as if to say there is something bigger, higher than your abilit, or inability) would overshadow her. Her overwhelming situation that exposed her total inability to handle the situation would be OVERSHADOWED by His total ABILITY to handle it.
The Angel said, in verse 37, that the bottom line reality is that nothing is impossible to God. You see, God allows, even invites, us to experience impossible situations so that we learn to live in the realm of His ability. All that was required of Mary was for her to make herself available (say yes) with an expectant attitude. She said, “Behold the Bondslave of the Lord; be it done to me according to your word.” In other words, “Yes to You Lord in this thing. If this is what you want, then this is what I want. Now, since you said it Lord You do it.”
Be overshadowed today; it’s a lot more fun than being overwhelmed.