Her simple trust flowed from a pure heart and from knowledge of God. She stated plainly and without any apparent reservation: “I am the Lord’s servant. May it be to me as you have said.” Her response provides us with a perfect example of what it means to be purely and completely devoted to God and obedient to His will.

Some might want to argue that Mary’s limited response to the angel shows that she was simply a passive person. However, even a cursory examination of Mary’s behavior reveals that she was anything but passive.

Consider the situation about 30 years later when Mary, along with Jesus and His disciples, were at a wedding when the host ran out of wine. Notice that when Mary learned of this problem she approached her Son to solve it. When Jesus said the time wasn’t right, Mary turned to the servants and instructed them, “Do whatever he tells you to do.” With the servants eyeing Him for instructions, Jesus set in motion the steps by which He turned some 180 gallons of water into wine!

Inevitably, all of us end up focusing our lives on some set of ideas or principles. The ultimate irony is that even those who think they are creating their own way, their own truth, their own life, experience the greatest bondage: addiction and enslavement to their own urges and the chaos that are the wages of sin and disobedience. Paul admonished the Romans: “Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slave to the one whom you obey – whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience which leads to righteousness?” Mary’s life shows us how much better it is to serve our heavenly Father, who knows our frame and holds our best interest in His hands.

Faithfulness to Christ brings wonderful freedom in our lives – the freedom that comes from a pure heart. And, in the end, we can say with Paul, “I have fought a good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith.” This article is adapted from a chapter in the book that Crouse co-authored, “A Woman’s Path to True Significance,” Harvest House, 2007.