What does my soul magnify?

     It's easy to see what's right in front of you, to focus your thoughts, attention on here and now: this relentless pain, this wayward child, this difficult marriage, this set of plans or upcoming trip, this project.  We can get all wrapped up in almost anything, and any number of these can sink us like a stone, if we let it.  Sink us how?  By absorbing all of our vision, time and energies and crashing over us with worry, doubt or a sense of being overwhelmed.
   We ask so many unanswerable questions, or at least unanswerable in the immediate.  And asking questions is good, if you ask the right ones.  Questions stimulate thinking deeply and can lead to greater understanding...if you ask the right ones.  But questions can feed the fuel of mounting fear, self-doubt...if you ask the wrong ones.  Often times we ask the wrong ones: What's going to happen?  Why?  How long will this last? How can I get out of this? Will this ever end? What if??? The many questions without answers that cause our minds to spiral out of control and the escalating anxiety these questions stimulate, magnify the here and now, magnify the broken and the mess until it's all we can see or think or feel, and we're going under fast.
     But if there are bad questions, wrong questions, are there good and right ones?  How do we ask those?  What does it look like to magnify the Lord in this situation?  What glory can He receive in my life right in the midst of all my doubts and fears?  What could His goals and designs be for me right now?  Who can I ask to help me in this task, help me gain perspective, help me pray this through? What is the one step  I can take right now to move forward in a healthy, positive way - to gain traction, feel accomplished, make a difference? Who might be struggling right now, like I am, that I can bless or uplift? What might this look like in eternity or what can I do in the midst of this that would make eternal impact, cause the heavens to rejoice and break for with singing, stimulate the angels or the world to look on and praise the God in heaven?
   What makes all the difference in these questions? My focus, what my soul magnifies.  Whatever I meditate on, ruminate over, set my sites on gets bigger.  Mary was faced with ridicule, misunderstandings and could have focused on all the "Whys?" and "Hows?" But instead: Luke 1: 45-48a Blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord."

46And Mary said,

“My soul magnifies the Lord,
47and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
48for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant.

There are several things in here that can help us refocus our gaze on That which matters. Can shift us from self-focus and fear to a clearer vision of the unshakable True. What you believe.  Do you believe in the brokenness of your situation and the insurmountable odds? (Couldn't Mary have done this? There were a great many insurmountable odds.) Or in the fulfillment of what God says He will do right in the midst of the mess and through it and beyond it?  It's a choice to magnify one over the other - to set sites/sights on the Eternal rather than what my eyes alone can see, to rejoice in everlasting Beauty and Magnificent, unchanging Splendor rather than the piles of work, shattered hopes, insurmountable odds. And all of this, not because of who we are or what we see but because of what He sees.  Because He looks down, bends down low to listen and act on our behalf - again not because we are great - not cause we are great lovers of God, devout believers, have it all together ( believe me all those things are great and worthy of pursuit, just not the impetus for His looking) but because He is great and we are but servants in the midst of our broken messes and every day life circumstances.  And He loves to break in and mess all of that up and make something utterly beautiful right in the middle and with the broken.

How Great Thou Art 

Verse 1:

O Lord my God, when I in awesome wonder,

Consider all the worlds Thy hands have made;

I see the stars, I hear the rolling thunder,

Thy power throughout the universe displayed.

Chorus:

Then sings my soul, my Savior God, to Thee,

How great Thou art! How great Thou art!

Then sings my soul, My Savior God, to Thee,

How great Thou art! How great Thou art!

Verse 2:

When through the woods, and forest glades I wander,

And hear the birds sing sweetly in the trees.

When I look down, from lofty mountain grandeur

And hear the brook, and feel the gentle breeze.

Chorus

Verse 3:

And when I think, that God, His Son not sparing;

Sent Him to die, I scarce can take it in;

That on the cross, my burden gladly bearing,

He bled and died to take away my sin.

Chorus

Verse 4:

When Christ shall come, with shout of acclamation,

And take me home, what joy shall fill my heart.

Then I shall bow, in humble adoration,

And then proclaim, "My God, how great Thou art!"

A great listen!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXQpDDcrN-w
   I like how this group mixes How Great Thou Art with It is Well for the former is key to the latter.  It is not great spirituality, but perspective that changes us from overwhelmed people buried under the weight and oppression of circumstance to men and women standing in the strength and power of God, rejoicing in His glory, magnifying His greatness in the midst of every situation.

 A great, short watch on the story behind the hymn 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fr78_-H_7fg