Good Morning Gorgeous,

It’s a brand new day. A fresh start. A new day for bold faith to keep hoping and praying for your miracle. A new day to revel at the Christmas story and let the reality of a goood Lord who would design such an intricate and beautiful rescue story sink fully into our bones and heart and belief system.

Let His goodness become complete and total truth to us. Zechariah’s story made me pause and reflect this morning.

Do we really believe the Lord will answer our prayers? Are we praying in bold expectation knowing that He will provide? Do we have the assurance in our soul that He hears, He is involved in every detail, and He is moving and shifting things on our behalf.

Sometimes we pray, but the doubt weighs heavy. And I believe Zechariah struggled with that same tension. He believed, and he was fervently praying for a son, but was he really expecting God to come through?

Zechariah was a priest whose entire life was devoted to serving God, and he struggled with doubt. The bible describes Zechariah as righteous in the sight of the Lord and observant of all of God’s commands and decrees blamelessly. He was a good man of God, yet he wrestled with doubt.

He was chosen by lottery to be the one to enter the Holy of Holies in the temple and burn the incense and to pray. This was a man who believed in God and was praying for a miracle.

Even though he believed in God and trusted God and served God and spent his whole life following God, he wasn’t prepared to actually have his prayer answered! You can tell by his response. When the angel appeared to him, he was gripped with fear.

We can tell that Zechariah has been praying for a son because the angel says, “Your prayer has been heard.”

“Do not be afraid, Zechariah; your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you are to call him John. He will be a joy and delight to you, and many will rejoice because of his birth, for he will be great in the sight of the Lord.

Even after the beautiful message from the angel Gabriel delivered to him in person inside of the temple, he still questioned.

He asked how this could happen because he and his wife were so old. The angel told him that he wouldn’t speak until his son was born because of his doubt.

The Lord was so good that He still blessed Zechariah with a son even through his momentary doubt.

What this story has me reflecting on this morning is my own momentary lapses of complete belief. My own wrestling with praying bold prayers and then trusting God IS moving. HE WILL heal and HE WILL restore and HE WILL answer your bold prayers.

Zechariah was praying a bold prayer. He was praying for a son even though he knew it was impossible without God’s intervention. But then when his breakthrough came and his prayer was answered his actions revealed his unbelief.

My prayer today is that our unbelief is removed from us. That our faith matches our bold prayers. That we can get ahold of an assurance that when we speak, heaven moves on our behalf! That when we pray for a baby, we believe a baby is on the way. Maybe not in our timing, but in the perfect timing.

If we are trusting for a restored relationship, then we begin to act and speak and move as if the restoration is already in motion.

Friends, I am praying for us to read the miraculous events surrounding the coming of Jesus into the earth and our faith will be stirred and ignited. Keep praying for your miracle, your breakthrough, your family, your next steps, and then move with assurance that God is already moving.

Dear Heavenly Father,

Thank You for Your goodness and mercy and love. Thank You for the miraculous birth of John the Baptist who paved the way for Jesus. Thank You for being an active involved Father God who desires to produce good fruit in our lives. Lord, remove any unbelief from our hearts, and fill us with unshakeable faith. In Jesus’s name, Amen.

Scripture from Luke:

Both of them were righteous in the sight of God, observing all the Lord’s commands and decrees blamelessly. But they were childless because Elizabeth was not able to conceive, and they were both very old. Once when Zechariah’s division was on duty and he was serving as priest before God, he was chosen by lot, according to the custom of the priesthood, to go into the temple of the Lord and burn incense. And when the time for the burning of incense came, all the assembled worshipers were praying outside. Then an angel of the Lord appeared to him, standing at the right side of the altar of incense. When Zechariah saw him, he was startled and was gripped with fear. But the angel said to him: “Do not be afraid, Zechariah; your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you are to call him John. He will be a joy and delight to you, and many will rejoice because of his birth, for he will be great in the sight of the Lord. He is never to take wine or other fermented drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit even before he is born. He will bring back many of the people of Israel to the Lord their God. And he will go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the parents to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous—to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.” Zechariah asked the angel, “How can I be sure of this? I am an old man and my wife is well along in years.” The angel said to him, “I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God, and I have been sent to speak to you and to tell you this good news. And now you will be silent and not able to speak until the day this happens, because you did not believe my words, which will come true at their appointed time.”

Luke 1:6‭-‬20