DEC 22 | The Long Walk to Understanding
In those days Mary arose and went with haste into the hill country, to a town in Judah, and she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the baby leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit, and she exclaimed with a loud cry, "Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! And why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For behold, when the sound of your greeting came to my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord."
— Luke 1:39-45 (ESV)
The road stretches before you, rocky and uneven beneath your sandals. You are young—probably no more than fourteen. You are alone. And you are carrying something you cannot explain to anyone who might pass you on this path.
The hill country between Nazareth and Judea is not kind terrain. This is eighty miles of climbing and descending, of limestone ridges and narrow valleys where the wind cuts cold in the early morning. You pull your cloak tighter. You keep walking..
No one told you the path to blessing would feel this much like wilderness.
An angel appeared to you—how many days ago now? It feels like another lifetime. The words still echo: "Greetings, O favored one. The Lord is with you." You believed. You said yes. "Let it be to me according to your word." And now you are walking, because that is what faith looks like when you have stopped speaking. One foot, then the other. The path ahead, winding and uncertain. A promise in your belly too small to see.
The Scripture says you went "with haste." Not reluctantly. Not dragging. Something urgent lives in your bones now—the need to find someone who will understand. Your mother does not know yet. Joseph certainly does not know. The neighbors would never believe you. But Elizabeth—your relative, old and barren and somehow also pregnant with her own impossible child—she might be the only person on earth who can look at you and not see a scandal.
So you walk.
The path becomes your prayer. Each step is a small act of trust—trust that God has not sent you into absurdity, trust that the word spoken over you will find its landing. You do not yet have the Magnificat on your lips; that will come later, when Elizabeth's greeting cracks something open in you. Right now, all you have is the rhythm of walking. The dust on your feet. The strange, quiet certainty that you are not abandoned, even though no one else can see what you are carrying.
This is the part of faith that rarely makes the flannel boards. The long middle. The days between the promise and its visible proof. You have heard the word from the Lord, but the word has not yet become flesh in any way that others can perceive. You are pregnant with hope, and hope makes you heavy in ways you did not expect.
But you keep walking. Because that is what the path requires: not certainty, but movement. Not answers, but the willingness to take the next step while holding the questions loosely.
And then—finally—you crest the last hill. The town appears below you, terra-cotta and limestone in the late afternoon light. You descend. You find the house. You push open the door and open your mouth to speak a greeting, and before the second syllable leaves your lips, the baby in Elizabeth's womb leaps and the old woman's face floods with recognition.
"Blessed are you among women!"
She knows. Before you have explained anything, before you have justified or defended or proven, she knows. The Spirit has told her what no human could have. And suddenly all the lonely miles collapse into this moment of being utterly, completely seen.
"Blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord."
Here is the word you did not know you needed. Not just "blessed because of what God will do through you," but "blessed because you believed." Blessed in the walking, not only in the arriving. Blessed in the eighty miles of doubt and dust, not only in the door flung open with joy. Your faith—the small, stubborn act of putting one foot in front of the other—is seen. It is named. It is called blessed.
The path was not incidental to the promise. The path was part of the formation. Every step that carried you here was also shaping you for what comes next. You did not merely arrive at Elizabeth's house; you arrived as a person who had chosen to walk when walking was all you could do.
This is what it means to follow a Person instead of a plan. Jesus has not given you a map. He has given you himself—a presence you carry, a word you trust, a next step you can take. The path is narrow, but it is not lonely, because the God who spoke the promise walks the path with you, hidden but not absent.
Perhaps you are on a road like Mary's today. You have heard something from the Lord—a calling, a conviction, a hope that will not let you go—but you cannot see how it will unfold. The terrain is rough. The distance feels impossible. And no one around you seems to understand what you are carrying.
Keep walking.
Not because the destination is guaranteed on your timeline. Not because the path will become easy. But because somewhere ahead, there is an Elizabeth waiting—a door that will open, a voice that will name what you carry before you have to defend it, a recognition that makes all the lonely miles worth enduring.
Blessed are you who believe. Blessed are you who walk.
Today
Sometime today, take a walk—even if only for five minutes around your block. As you walk, name one thing you are carrying that no one else can see yet: a hope, a calling, a fear, a question. Speak it aloud to God, one step at a time. Let the walking itself become your prayer.
An Invitation to go Deeper….
If today’s message spoke to you, join the FaithLabz 30-Day Prayer Challenge and strengthen your connection with God’s unshakable love. You are never alone—let’s grow together!
