Luke 1:21-25 :

The people were waiting for Zacharias, and they marveled that he delayed in the temple. When he came out, he could not speak to them, and they perceived that he had seen a vision in the temple. He continued making signs to them, and remained mute. It happened, when the days of his service were fulfilled, he departed to his house. After these days Elizabeth, his wife, conceived, and she hid herself five months, saying, “Thus has the Lord done to me in the days in which he looked at me, to take away my reproach among men.”

Have you ever been in a situation where it looked like you were the bad one but you were actually being good? This appears to be the situation that Elizabeth found herself in. I don’t know for sure whether or not the neighbors thought that Elizabeth had done wrong and God was cursing her for it, but it is clear that Elizabeth felt disgrace from it. It is also clear that this disgrace wasn’t from God.

I have to chuckle a little bit when I think of this scene. The people were gathered outside the temple waiting for Zacharias to come out from his meeting with God and possibly hear what God has to say. Zacharias takes too long and when he finally does come out, he can’t say a thing, so he keeps motioning with his hands. You can almost see the people staring intently at his hand waving trying to figure out what happened, and Zacharias keeps motioning, but all they could come up with was that he had seen some kind of vision.

It is obvious that Zacharias lacked faith at this point, but Elizabeth believed that it was God doing this directly for her. Elizabeth obviously thought well of God; that He would care and that He would do something about it. That is really what God is like. Perhaps it was Elizabeth’s faith that pleased God and caused Him to want to do a great thing for both of them. That is a very encouraging thing for couples who have a mismatch of faith in the family.

We should trust God and know that He has our best interests in mind. He will do good to us.

We find out a little bit more about Elizabeth as we read on, but it is clear that she was not a disgrace. Sometimes God does things differently than people expect. Sometimes the things He does look like punishment on the outside, but we discover that they actually are not.