Zechariah said to the angel, “How can I be sure this will happen? I’m an old man now, and my wife is also well along in years.”
19Then the angel said, “I am Gabriel! I stand in the very presence of God. It was he who sent me to bring you this good news! 20But now, since you didn’t believe what I said, you will be silent and unable to speak until the child is born. For my words will certainly be fulfilled at the proper time.”
21Meanwhile, the people were waiting for Zechariah to come out of the sanctuary, wondering why he was taking so long. 22When he finally did come out, he couldn’t speak to them. Then they realized from his gestures and his silence that he must have seen a vision in the sanctuary.
23When Zechariah’s week of service in the Temple was over, he returned home. 24Soon afterward his wife, Elizabeth, became pregnant and went into seclusion for five months. 25“How kind the Lord is!” she exclaimed. “He has taken away my disgrace of having no children.”
Zechariah was seeing and hearing an angel, but he couldn’t believe what the angel was saying. His and Elizabeth’s age were more real than the angel standing in front of him. Their age was, in Zechariah’s mind, a big problem even for God. Gabriel gets upset with Zechariah. Gabriel live in an entirely different reality. He lived in the presence of the God who created the entire universe by his word. For Gabriel, that was reality and Zechariah’s and Elizabeth’s age didn’t even amount to a speed bump.
So what is my reality? Judging from this it likely is where I spend my time. Do I spend my time “in the very presence of God”, or do I spend my time thinking about me and my worldly situation? How I view situations is going to be greatly altered by where I spend my time, and my view of situations greatly changes how I act and react. I can hardly imagine how different I would act day in and day out if I always believed that whatever God chooses “will certainly be fulfilled at the proper time.”
Holy Spirit, become such an intimate part of my life that I am always in the “very presence of God.” Mold me and shape me and change me so I view every situation from God’s perspective and have the courage to live, and act, and believe in accordance with God’s reality.
Yeah, I’m keepin it real!
