Christmas and the humble way of God

Christmas can be a glorious time, filled with the wonder of children, religious devotion, and abundance. Christmas can also be a time of let downs, a time of dryness in our spiritual life, and loneliness or want. Christmas is always Good News, but our experience of the season may differ year to year, or person to person.

So it would do us good to remember the grace of the first Christmas and how that continues to today. Jesus, the Son of God, could have been born to a royal home. He could have been a great leader. He could have had influence beyond measure. As God, He could have chosen any path to impact the world. But he chose to be born as a peasant, to a poor family. He chose a normal, ordinary family. He chose to be born to this family under difficult circumstances (who wants to give birth to the Messiah in a barn?).

His trajectory did not change. To be his followers, he chose ordinary people. He made these ordinary and broken people the Apostles of his church. This is how he was going to change the world?! Yep.

And his trajectory still has not changed. For he is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. He still chooses to be born in the hearts of ordinary people, a Light kindled in one heart at a time. It is not an efficient way to change the world (by our standards at least), but it is His way. This is how he wants to bring about his kingdom of justice and peace and love?! Yep. One heart at a time.

And to each heart that welcomes him, he gives the gift of making that person a son or daughter or child of God. Yes, a child of the Most High.

So wherever you are and however you are this Christmas, let us not forget the humble way of God. Maybe we can take a little courage and joy from it, and make the world around us a little better.

​Merry Christmas!