Blessed and Highly Favored

I will just start with saying I am typing this with no idea of how it will end (not unusual) and I feel exteremely "unqualified" to discuss this but the Spirit keeps pushing so here I go. 
"Blessed and highly favored"-I honestly have never heard this phrase used in "everyday life" until I moved down here.  It is a familiar phrase to any of us who know the Christmas story "And the angel came in unto her, and said, Hail, [thou that art] highly favoured, the Lord [is] with thee: blessed [art] thou among women." (Luke 1:28 KJV).  So that's my paradigm from where I see this phrase, it's what the angel told Mary before he dropped the big news.  Her response to the angel (after feeling troubled by the greeting then some questioning) was acceptance. 
Shortly after I started my job down here, I was walking through the halls and I approached a house keeper and, as I try to do, I smiled and said "How are you?"  as I was walking on by.  He stopped what he was doing and in his Jamaican accent he said "I am blessed and highly favored.  How about you?"  Ok so now I slow my steps and my smile turns forced/polite. He goes on to tell me he told a surgeon the same thing one night in the parking garage and the man wept.  (My honest thoughts? "Yeah right.") And then he says again "How about you?" And I think I said something like "I guess so."  And it stuck with me and honestly, I kind of tried to avoid him or eye contact with him again, especially if in the moment I wasn't feeling very blessed and highly favored.  He was not around when things were going super well and I could yell "BLESSED AND HIGHLY FAVORED!" And I saw other people pass him and he didn't say the same thing to them.  Why?  Usually it was a nod or a smile and he continued his floor cleaning. 
These 4 words have come up again in random places enough that I googled it to see if maybe I was missing a "catch phrase" somewhere.  Maybe Beth Moore or Billy Graham had said it and I missed it.  Nothing turned up but a southern gospel song by the Clark Sisters and a couple of other bloggers trying to hash it out.  So I have been thinking about them alot. 
When I am told I am blessed and highly favored my first response is undeserving.  Because to me, a person who is blessed and highly favored is one who is obedient (like Mary).  And I can't look at someone and know their walk or thier obedience.  I suck at it lots of times.  I try but I fail and you may not know all that about me. 
But I think you can declare yourself blessed and highly favored.  Not because you are patting yourself on the back or bragging.  No, I think it's a perspective thing. 

I am blessed and highly favored because I have the riches of salvation and unfailing love from Jesus not because of the job I have or the money I have in my account.
I am blessed and highly favored because every once in awhile God shows me and asks, ok sometimes pushes, OK occasionally shoves me into doing His will and I know I am not doing my own thing.
I am blessed and highly favored because He has given me his Word and Truth and when I am in it I am protected and I never have to believe another one of the enemies lies spoken about me. 
I am blessed and highly favored because I have been given grace for when I fail not because I am doing all the "right things."
I am blessed and highly favored not because everything is perfect in my world but because its chaos and  I yell, my kids fight, I have no money 2 days before payday, and my to do list grows beyond what I can ever get done and yet I KNOW that God has me secure in His hand and He is in control.  (Someone feel free to remind me often)
Blessed and highly favored isn't about the external or the world we live in now.  It's about eternal and knowing this world is not my home. It's keeping my eyes on Jesus. 
So last week I saw my friend again and I looked him directly in the eye, knowing what he would say.  And when it came to my turn in the conversation I was able to look him in the eye and say "I am blessed and highly favored." And he said "Good! Now take my phone number.  You can call me anytime and I will pray for you." (In his thick Jamaican accent) And now I know his name is Andrew.
And as a side note, the other day, I was at the nurses station and an surgeon looking man in a scrubs and lab coat came breezing by and it caught my eye as he passed Andrew he said "How's it going, brother?" and reached out and gave him a "guy hug."  And I realized then that Andrew is an angel. But that's for another blog. :)
Blessed and highly favored,
joy