On What Sort Of Greeting

Luke 1:26-30
"In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. And the virgin's name was Mary. And he came to her and said, 'Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you!' But she was greatly troubled at the saying, and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be. And the angel said to her, 'Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.'"

This is from the Christmas Story. I think its tremendous that Mary was staring at an Angel, and she had to sit there and try to figure out what the junk was going on. Because seriously, how often to angles show up and announce to you that you're pregnant? It's happened once.

I think we spend a lot of time trying to discern "what sort of greeting" God's giving us. Every time I face a major life decision, I spend hours "trying to discern". I think it might be endemic to evangelical christianity. We teach ourselves that we need to listen to God. You tell someone, "i'm thinking about studying abroad", and all they say back to you is, "Pray about it. Listen to God."
That's more or less a useless answer, obviously I asked for your advice because I wanted your advice, not a canned response that's just going to paralyze me with inaction.
How do we get over the trying to discern part? Mary didn't have to understand what was going on. For all we know, she didn't know what was happening until after Jesus rose from the dead. Somewhere along the way, like His disciples, she must have thrown in the towel on trying to discern and just let Jesus reveal himself to her.
How do we do that?
How do we let go of trying to understand the universe? And how do we let go of always trying to figure out what sort of greeting this is?

Retreat

Matthew 15:21:
"And Jesus went away from there and withdrew to the district of Tyre and Sidon."
...this passage introduces the story where a Canaanite woman asks Jesus to help her daughter. Jesus tells her no, that he's only there to help the Jews, and she answers, "Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master's table." And Jesus heals her daughter.

What struck me is that Jesus Withdrew to an area where non-Jewish people lived. The way its written makes it look like Jesus decided he needed a break from religious people. He Withdrew. He went somewhere else. He got away from there, and went to go hangout with people who didn't try to make him fit into their religious box. And if you knew that everyone around you wanted to kill you, you would probably do the same thing...
We make religion into a huge deal here in America. We play politics off of it, we get into family feuds over it, we allow it to steer our choices and dictate which brands of toilet paper we boycott or not.
Jesus had to withdraw from religious people.
Can't blame non-christians for not liking something that even Jesus couldn't deal with.

study

an hour ago i found a love note that was hidden for me to find, dated over 4 years ago.
how am i supposed to concentrate on BJT amplifiers?