Joseph

P 3202 No Room.

/ DVH

I don’t think we can begin to imagine what it was like for Mary and Joseph long, long ago. They travelled nearly 200 kilometres, basically on foot, to obey the law and be counted, so they could pay taxes to an occupying army. And when they arrived at their destination, they learnt that there was nowhere for them to to stay. To top all that off … Mary was about to give birth. The very last possibility they had for a room told them: “No room!” But then the innkeeper takes pity on them, and tells them about something they can use. It’s a place for animals to shelter. 

2,000+ years ago, there were no camp grounds, caravan parks, AirBnb, hotels, motels, or resorts. No phoning ahead to make a booking. And even if there had been, this young couple were poor, they couldn’t afford to pay much. So they end up in a shed out the back. It’s freezing cold in Bethlehem at that time of the year – I looked it up (!) and animals probably used that shed to get out of the cold weather. This young couple were in the lowest place possible … yet God chose it for them. He had a bigger plan! 

Mary’s labour started ramping up, and there’s no help coming. Imagine that! This is her first baby. Mary doesn’t know what to expect, and her female family members are 200 kms back the way they came. This means they are utterly on their own for the birth of their child. Mary already knew all about this precious infant, and how and why she is pregnant, and so does Joseph. It might have seemed a tiny bit odd to them that the light of the whole world is going to be born under these dreadful circumstances, but they have no time for reflection, opinions, or alternatives … because it was happening to them, now. And so, God’s precious Son is born in a shed with animals for company. Praise God. The Lord Jesus brought such incredible joy with Him – because you might have a party in a barn, but it is not a place to have a baby! 

Many times we can translate the word joy into happiness, but the truth is JOY is a spiritual gift. Happiness seems to depend upon our circumstances and our reactions to them. This life screams at each one of us – there is no room for you! Your life is awful… God doesn’t love YOU! You are a waste of space. This is the point of my blog today. Those words NO ROOM seem final. But nothing is final to the Lord! He tells us in Psalm 23, that we can walk with Him through the valley of the shadow of death! But even that is only a theory … until it is tested. Boy. Mary and Joseph had it tested, alrighty and they held onto His promise.

There are times when it seems like there is no rest for us from walking around in the middle of some fire or other that has exploded into our lives. We can easily forget we are walking around in the middle of a miracle, despite the circumstances … we will live to tell the tale. Like the three guys thrown into the fiery furnace, things happen to all of us, and those things are not punishment, they are part of an imperfect world. They don’t always make sense!

The specific problems this young couple had, may not have happened to you, but this kind of intense and suffocating opposition and oppression has become very common in our lives today. One difficult thing happens, then another, then just when it seems like it will all be OK …something else pops up that sends us spinning. Someone over-spends on the credit card, or hacks our account, and now the mortgage or the rent is past due. Other people attack us and we have no idea why. Some people seem to have brought their mess or incompetence with them into our lives. 

It’s a bit like that old kid’s game: “stacks on the mill, more on still.” Everything starts to pile on top of you. Bin there, dun that. I couldn’t afford a T-shirt and I couldn’t escape either – I had to go through. Beloved of God we must learn how to go through! What we focus on in these tests reveals our weaknesses, but that’s also where we can freely take advantage of the Lord’s strength! Or we can try to make the best of a bad bargain and slog on. But the very best response is to yell for HELP and hold on. Let’s learn to hold fast to Him, steadfastly believing that nothing can separate us from the love of Jesus. He knows what He is doing! We are not always given room to grow. Like a baby being born, we have to push through, despite how we feel. Birth is painful.

I have had my share of miserable tales from living this life, and it sees to me that most of the bad things that happen to us, are normal. (Meanwhile if you are looking for a blog that talks about sunshine and happiness all the time you are reading the wrong blog!) BUT, if you want to learn how to be an overcomer, you will have to have something to overcome! “He who overcomes (is victorious), I will grant him to sit beside Me on My throne, as I Myself overcame (was victorious) and sat down beside My Father on His throne.” Revelation 3:21. Jesus’ seating arrangements are directly correlated to our ability to conquer self, the devil, and dastardly situations, and still keep on maintaining the Love of Jesus toward others, as we push through.

That’s what happened to Mary, Joseph and the newborn infant Jesus. This life can squish us flatter than a pancake, and hit us harder than a Mac truck. The secret is to put our eyes on Him, and let the problem fade into the background. We are carriers of His goodness –  remember, goodness makes its own room. Bye. 👋

P 3188 His will His way.

/ DVH

Let’s imagine, or even try to stretch our imaginations a bit, and think about being fourteen or fifteen years old, unmarried and pregnant. You just happen to live in a society that at the very least, would shun you … but at its worst …it just might want to stone you to death! You know you are pure and innocent, but other people won’t see it that way. And you have to tell your fiancee that God Himself made you pregnant!  That would have been some conversation with him and her parents!

Now that Christmas is coming toward us at warp speed, I thought today was a good day to think about these two young people and what they had to face to carry out Almighty God’s calling over their lives. While we whinge and whine when the Lord asks us to mow our neighbours lawn! Or maybe He has asked us to be nice to our in-laws? We make lists about these presents and that food, but there are some among us that can’t wait for all the hoo-haa to be over! 

It seems to me that back then in Bethlehem it was a different, far-less-indulgent time. People often faced the consequences of their actions on the spot! God Himself chose this inexperienced young couple, for an honour the likes of which this world has never seen before — or since! Praise Him they both had integrity, character and a shared devotion to His will. They chose to obey HIM despite the hardship it involved. Imagine managing a faith test like Mary and Joseph had to face …in a very religious society to boot. 

The Roman occupying forces demanded that everyone, including Mary, who was pregnant out to here (!) ← → had to return to their place of their ancestor’s origins. Meanwhile, our census turns up in the post and people moan about that! Joseph himself was from David’s genealogy, so this young couple had to go all the way to Jerusalem. Which, BTW, was hardly a leisurely stroll to the local shops!  All this happened so the citizens could be counted and to make sure that the appropriate taxes would be paid to the Roman Government. And we think our lives are hard!! 

That donkey we see in all the so-called Christmas pictures, was probably something tradition made up, just to make a pretty picture out of a long and difficult journey. Mary and Joseph weren’t rich people, and while this young couple may have travelled within a caravan of people, simply because there was a possibility of bandits along the way — in that 129-145 kilometre week-long journey, it is more likely that they walked.… All that happened just so they could pay more tax to an occupying army! 

Let’s think about Mary for a moment… the last month of a pregnancy is not the greatest time to go on a bush walking tour! It must have been incredibly taxing for her, as well as disappointing to be in labour, and have no safe shelter at the other end. Plus she had no family on hand to help either of them with the process. I’m writing about this today because we have a tendency to mentally glamourise our picture of the birth of Jesus, without taking into account the reality of the situation. 

When we do that, we can minimise the pure faith of this young couple who were simply being law-abiding citizens doing what was asked of them!  But their obedience meant that they were walking straight into unknown hardship. And at the same time — they were also walking straight into God’s will for them. Funny how that happens sometimes, isn’t it?

When I think of giving birth the way Mary gave birth I shudder. I gave birth to three kids in a hospital. In one of them we couldn’t find a nurse. In another, women were giving birth in the corridor! But I had medical attention close to hand. All Mary had was Joseph. This young man was a carpenter – what did he know about giving birth? Mary was all alone, in pain, and her husband knew bupkis. There she is giving birth to God’s precious Son, her own Saviour – in a cave or animal shed. All because prophetically, they are clearly demonstrating that this world did not even want a Saviour. God’s will can put us into difficult situations through no fault of our own.

So much happened to them in the process of bringing Jesus into this world. I think their response is so beautiful – unrelenting devotion. After all that, this life was not finished with throwing hardships at them. They finally got settled as a family, only to have to escape from a jealous despot who wanted to kill all the Jewish baby boys so he could be the only king on the premises. So, off the little family goes again. This time they are running from persecution and the fear of death — simply trying to find somewhere safe to raise their little son. No wonder Joseph baulked at returning to their hometown, when it was finally safe again – their lives had been in chaos for months.

Jesus Christ was born under all these difficult conditions simply to fulfil prophecy. His life, birth and death identified Him with everyone. Including the poor, weak, homeless, unwanted, rejected, persecuted, marginalised people of this world – not in theory, but in practice. Jesus and His parents had to live minute by minute with stress and strain and hardship.. Nobody asked either Mary or Joseph if they thought they could handle all the persecution and fear that lay ahead, it simply happened to them. 

Let’s pray that we can grab hold of all the courage and clarity that has been made available to us because of what Jesus did. I wanted to talk about the things this couple faced, simply because we too can face awful, difficult situations regularly and we feel oppressed by them.Things can seem insurmountable. We can easily baulk at all those things we face, and wonder why God would let such hard and bad things happen to us. He didn’t spare His precious Son!  

In the bright joyous light of Christmas, we also need to deliberately remember the things which can turn us away from our devotion to Him. We won’t always understand why some things happen, any more than that young couple did. But we need to choose to look for the good in the middle of trouble and strife. Right now, we are training our spiritual senses to be aware of the very real spiritual war going on all around us.Let’s remind ourselves that some people are hoping for a decent meal in their Santa sack, plus somewhere safe to sleep – instead of being rudely awakened by vicious godless men with machetes.

What does it matter if our little Franco or Zelda does not get some you-beaut fancy electronic gizmo for Christmas? That temporary pleasure is something that will be probably pronounced boring and discarded in a week! The most precious gift ever, has already arrived, and He completed His heaven-sent assignment to the letter. Jesus Himself, is our proof that our God is out-of-this-world generous in His gift-giving. And instead of complaints, moaning and groaning, rebellion and disobedience — let’s also remember that two very ordinary people were brave enough to follow His will, His way. Bye. 👋

P 2968 God’s Love is alive …

/ DVH

… IN US! We don’t have to pray it down or work it up – it is released … given away ….by using our faith!“Such hope [in God’s promises] never disappoints us, because God’s love has been abundantly poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.”Romans 5:5.

Jesus came into this world as Love personified. That’s why studying His life in the Gospels is so beneficial. We can see what God’s love looks like in real life, interacting with real people. He is our example, our living illustration of God’s love in action. That’s God’s love talking to the woman at the well, or pardoning the adulterous woman who was taken to be stoned. That’s God’s love touching lepers, loving sinners, and healing the sick in the middle of a service. That’s God’s love standing on a hillside preaching for hours. Jesus cared that the people listening had no food, and no way to get it easily and He provided for them.

Jesus is God’s love beautifully wrapped in vulnerable  human skin, flesh and bone. It was His love that stayed on the cross until the redemption of mankind was accomplished. It was God’s love that called Him away from here and leave this world, so He could stand beside His Father interceding on our behalf. His love sent back to us our best ally – our helper, teacher, counsellor, healer, etc. in the Person of the Holy Spirit. 

We all love miracles, but miracles are not the main thing! If we stop at miracles we are like Simon the Sorcerer in Acts, or the Pharisees demanding a miracle to order. When we see things like Jesus turning water into wine, walking on water, calming the storm, or healing Peter’s mother-in-law, or healing a man blind from birth …each one of those miracles are prompted by a passionate love for each situation and each individual…These things are not prompted by obligation, or formality or even to prove Jesus was God Himself in human form! God’s love chose to speak to ordinary people in extraordinary ways, in their everyday circumstances.

If we choose to look after ourselves and our own comfort, and refuse to actively learn what His love looks like so we can minister to someone else, we can render ourselves ineffective. The Holy Spirit is pure love — that’s why we can so easily hurt Him with our careless talk and attitudes toward others! Love makes itself vulnerable at great personal cost. So we need the Holy Spirit’s guidance desperately, every minute of every hour of every day – He knows how to please the Father and the Son a-n-d .. He knows the way through everything that happens to us! 

The purity of the Holy Spirit’s love is the power of God to do good. He is God’s goodness in action! Human beings desperately need His kind of altruistic love… it has nothing whatsoever to do with feelings. Jesus came into this world to illustrate love’s true nature. The bible tells us that He demonstrated God’s love toward us while we were sinners. The most precious form of love there is, has nothing to do with the other person’s behaviour. We can’t make that kind of love up!  I don’t care how nice you are to others, nice runs out! 

Love is a little like Joseph’s beautiful coloured coat in Genesis.  It was given to him by his father Jacob. That coat was a concrete illustration of Jacob’s love for his youngest son. It covered that young man, and marked him out everywhere he went. People who saw him might say; ‘There goes Jacob’s youngest son!’  That’s why his brothers were jealous, they had to stare at that coat! 

God’s Love covers US in the same way. His unchanging love is the stamp of God upon His people. It can’t be faked. The people who choose to be transformed by love are enabled by His Grace to put whatever other people do to them – by accident or design – under His blood. We have a far far greater purpose than revenge – we have been appointed by Almighty God Himself to share His Love with other people! There is no greater calling than that. 

Forget this title, or that important position, or this influence, or that speaking ability – loving others is the reason we are all here … We must consciously decide to learn that kind of love. And the grumpy difficult people in our lives are our teachers, our motivators – they inspire us learn how to rely even more deeply upon God’s grace to do the impossible. These people give us opportunities to die to what we want, and say yes to what God wants.

Paul says this beautifully in 2 Corinthians 5:12-21.MSG.“God alone knows how well we do this, but I hope you realize how much and deeply we care. We’re not saying this to make ourselves look good to you. We just thought it would make you feel good, proud even, that we’re on your side and not just nice to your face as so many people are. If I acted crazy, I did it for God; if I acted overly serious, I did it for you. Christ’s love has moved me to such extremes. His love has the first and last word in everything we do.”

‘May the love of Christ be foremost in everything we say and do as we follow Him.’ Amen. God’s love has been given to us to share, it is alive, it will totally change lives.  Bye. 🙏

P 2831 The place of satisfaction.

/ DVH

The Christmas season can bring family time sharply into focus, because Christmas itself came into being from what appears to be a perfect family unit. Let’s briefly look at Mary, Joseph and Jesus. Mary was pregnant-before-marriage, so she had to hide her pregnancy from her neighbours. Joseph, her soon-to-be husband was instantly installed as a step-parent to SomeOne else’s child – imagine how much Almighty God trusted that man! The tiny family were poverty-stricken, instantaneously homeless because of targeted persecution, and refugees to boot. God placed His precious Son into an ordinary family with its share of harsh difficulties.

My point is chasing perfection is a thankless task. Perfection does not exist outside of Christ Himself. Satisfaction comes from the Lord. However, as we are daily being perfected inwardly by what Christ did for us, I’ve noticed that everybody else changed along the way! Except they didn’t. Now I’ve woken up to the fact that my personal view of other people has changed, because I have started to see others through His eyes, and boy are His eyes kinder than mine!

The absence of loved ones in this season can make Christmas a very hard time. I have a grown daughter who lives 1800 kms away from me, and I don’t see her or her family, including my eldest grandchild at all. Hubby rarely sees his family either … we’ve chosen to live in another state! We try to make the effort to bridge the gap so we can see both sides of the family, but even when we do, there never seems to be enough time to catch up. Sometimes it seems like you’ve barely said “hello” and you have to say “goodbye” again.

This situation has given us an opportunity to be inventive about how hubby and I share His love and our love with our resident families. At the same time,  we are very acquainted with the kind of sadness that sits on you when you miss people who are so special to you. There is also the yearly fight about whose parents should we visit this year? Whose turn is it this year? Not to mention those people who will face Christmas alone. At the same time, a number of important people in our lives have died, and Christmas definitely seems to be the time of year when you think of them and miss them. One day God Himself will wipe away all our tears.

Here’s what I’ve managed to learn about this season as life has rolled along —“Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain. It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil; for He gives to His beloved sleep.”Psalm 127:1-2. Boy I wish I had taken those two verses to heart every Christmas for most of my adult life!! In my efforts to see everyone years ago, and do the right thing, I just did whatever my hand found to do, but I didn’t ask the Lord what He thought about my ideas! Dumb.

Inverted logic is a really stupid way to live one’s life. By that I mean thinking … “Well, I can’t see any harm in me working hard to make sure everyone’s Christmas is great. Other people are going to be blessed, so this can’t be a bad idea, God will like it.” Like I said – it’s dumb! It can quickly lead to exhaustion! Today, more than ever before, we need to be doing whatever we see Him doing. So my advice to others is this: skip that turkey, ham, Christmas pudding and cranberry sauce if cooking them means your Christmas is frustrating. Before you jump down the very deep, labour intense hole of making everyone’s idea of Christmas appear – ask Him what He thinks instead!! Otherwise you will end up exhausted and in no shape to share your faith, hope and love with the people you love dearly.

So today, here’s my testimony about how I’ve learnt not to do Christmas. For us now all that fancy specialised food is no longer important. We are just grateful for the opportunity to see the people we love and take the time to bless them. I’ve learnt if you are going to labour then make sure you labour over something God Himself is building, not just something that upholds the kind of stuff that doesn’t last. In years gone by, I know I tried desperately to bring a child’s idea of a fairy-tale dream about a perfect family to life. Like that worked!! I alternatively tried harder, year after year, and so I constantly had a lousy Christmas! At the same time, I got annoyed at the people who didn’t help me.

Christmas is a celebration – it needs to be shared by all, from the youngest to the oldest, otherwise we are over- stressing some people and exhausting them, as well as perpetuating problems that are not necessary. If you had asked me all those years ago I probably would have said: ‘I like doing all this work, I love blessing people’  More fool me — because, to be truthful, I actually didn’t. Other people’s thank-yous never seemed to scratch the itch of my enormous need for appreciation. I worked so hard, yet I couldn’t wait for it to be over!

Instead I badly wanted to be sitting with everyone else chatting like they were, while they were waiting for me to get all that food ready. The lies we sometimes tell ourselves!  You know, some pain is unconsciously self-inflicted, and it can lead us into anger toward the very people we are meant to be serving. And, at the same time, that pain will steal away our PEACE! Take the time to ask the Lord what He wants you to do this Christmas. To be brutally honest, I’ve learnt that I need to stop being so proud that I can’t ask for help.

I loved my kids so much, I wanted them to have a happier life than the one I had. It took me years to see that even that statement was judgmental toward the people who had cared for me and raised me. If we want to bring about real change in our lives we will need to target the root of the tree of dissatisfaction, not just the leaves. The leaves on that tree can easily be the inconsiderate, sometimes selfish and self-centred sinful people around us. 

Most people cannot love us the way we want to be loved. They are busy trying to manage their own lives – so catering to our needs  will not register on their richter scale. Without Christ and His Way of living, this world is doomed to continue to seek out something that is not real. This life is depicted over and over again by the media as an over- idealised, irrational dream. Perfect love simply does not exist outside of what Christ did for us. We must start with Him, not our feelings or needs, and throw away the pretty fairy-tale dream of what family is supposed to look like.

Family are the people who voluntarily stay when the world falls on you, whether they are relatives or not! Christmas can be a time of pain, unless we are prepared to throw away our own unrealistic plans and take the time to discover His. The Holy Spirit will carry us through every single bit of the loss, suffering and disappointment we face, into a brand new place, the place where whatever He wants — we want. That’s the place of satisfaction. Bye 🌲.

P 2475 Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh.

/ DVH

Today I want to talk about the Wise men. They were travelling on camels from the East so they took sometime to arrive. Following a star slows you up a bit … there were those pesky clouds and all. Eventually they arrived at the house Mary, Joseph and Jesus were staying in. Some people call these men, the Magi. “And going into the house, they saw the child with Mary His mother, and they fell down and worshiped Him. Then, opening their treasures, they offered Him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh.“  Matthew 2:11.  

Each of these unusual gifts apparently had a special meaning, and smarter people than me have written loads, and even books, about them. When I was reading this part of the bible and talking about it with the Lord, He asked me this question. “What would YOU want to give me for a gift?” My immediate response was – ‘me!!’ But you might want to think on this question for yourself. 

I don’t know if this ever happens to you, but there are times when I talk to Him when I feel like what I said was … well, Ok-ay, … but not what He was looking for! This was one of those times… so I pressed on … and I asked Him what did He mean by that question? Pressing, BTW, on is the way to go …trust me!! I exhort you, don’t give up, push on! In those moments you are on the edge of a fresh revelation of Who He is. Unless you suddenly remember you have to go shopping, or get going to work on the same train you always take. I urge you to just give Jesus a few more minutes. I truly believe one of the Lord’s love languages is time spent with Him.

Then He said this: “Those Wise men gave Me gold. Gold represents everything you own, your money etc. Have you given Me everything?”  I sat and thought about that. Gold represents material things. Have I given all the material things I have to Him? Plus I also think that Gold is also about future provision. Cars, houses, money in the bank, clothes etc. Is there anything that I am holding onto, or that I think I want or need? There are times that I’ve told myself:  ‘God doesn’t care about that stuff!’ So I asked Him if there was anything I had overlooked- just to be thorough.

Then, I realised if we lost this or that, I would probably grieve over it but the things around me actually don’t matter much. When you lose your health everything else kind of fades into insignificance! But, I do find it hard to let go of the people I love, because I haven’t learnt to trust Him as utterly as I would like to. Sometimes I don’t understand what He is doing. If my dear hubby or my kids or my friends get sick, or unhappy, I have to fight a rising sense of panic at times. So I spent some time praying over those things too.

Then He asked me: “What about frankincense?” That one took me a while and I did a bit of research. Frankincense is given to Kings because it is valuable. So, to me, this gift is about the Lord Jesus’ Kingship over my life. It has its significance when I believe God IS God, no matter what is going on around me, in my life, or in my heart. Frankincense is about trust. Is He Who He says He is, or are we all at the mercy of circumstances? Are we affected by our decisions, bad or good, especially the ones we’ve made carelessly. Even the ones we haven’t repented about. We had a long conversation about this one – I found big spaces between what I knew and what I believed. BTW, I think belief is something we act upon not just what we talk about.

The last thing the Wise men brought is myrrh. Myrrh is about anointing and priesthood. The Lord asked me if I thought I was faithful to Him as a part of His priesthood. Did I minister to Him out of duty, or was I inspired by love? I spent a while on this one too. Mainly because I did not know the answer! That’s the problem with head knowledge, it sometimes gets in the way of the heart’s true answer! I ended up with Ezekiel’s wisdom. “Only YOU know Lord.”  That’s when I remembered that true worship is presenting our bodies as a living sacrifice – holy and pleasing to Him. 

Lastly I want to say that every one of these three gifts has great value, as well as significance. These things weren’t some cheap baby toys these Wise men picked up at the supermarket on the way to Jesus’ house! Anything and everything we offer to Him is valuable to Him, not because of monetary value, but because of the personal cost. Jesus knows everything about personal cost!

I do not believe revelation is given to us just to tickle our ears and make us feel good about knowing something that nobody else does. Revelation is designed to challenge our own hearts, transform our minds, and lead to different attitudes and actions. Always remembering that ‘first He speaks, then after that, the opportunity to change my response will come along.’ I have given up thinking that what I imagine I will do, is what I will actually do – nobody knows what they will do when they are tested. 😶 

The Lord Jesus is a gentleman, He will not snatch things from us. We must give them, as willingly as we can. So today I want to ask you, what will you give Him? 👋🏻

P 2469 “I was sitting around … minding my own business …”

/ DVH

This morning I was thinking about those shepherds who were sitting in a the field, long ago, simply watching over their sheep. You know who I mean … Jo and Mo (Joseph and Moses) and …  Fred and Barney … These men were sitting about keeping an eye on their sheep, and watching out for sneaky Pete the wolf and his pack, plus the odd lion or bear. I can’t imagine what they were actually talking about the minute before the sky exploded… maybe the low price of sheep at the market?  Or where’s the best pasture to go next??

Then BOOM! The sky lit up, an angel appeared and the world exploded with sound. It’s just as well the angels told them to “be not afraid!” You know if they hadn’t said that word straight from the throne of God — Jo, Mo, Fred and Barney would have had a heart attack … on the spot. “Mighty dread will do that to ya!”

Mo-oving on … back to these ordinary men, who were doing an ordinary job, day after day, after day. The same thing their fathers did and their fathers before them —- and their fathers before them. And nothing ever happened … until it did! Their whole world changed in a heartbeat when these heavenly beings appeared out of nowhere!!

Look at the faith of these men, once they got over being stunned, amazed and blessed … all at the same time! … Then they left their sheep mooching about, and hurried off looking for a baby in a manger. You and I might say: “What’s a manger?” But these shepherds knew what that was, and where to find one. They entered into the greatest miracle of all time, on a seemingly ordinary night … with the only fanfare provided by heavenly beings.

Father God chose a dirty stable as the site for His most precious Son’s birth. Jesus Christ was not elevated in any way! And those ordinary shepherds found out about His arrival first… Are we feeling the Vibe yet? Like where would the greatest SHEPHERD ever born … BE born? ….Among shepherds.

Isn’t it just like Jesus, to reveal Himself to people like you and I? That’s why the Good News IS the good news, it’s for everyone and anyone. You know the current King at that time, (Herod), heard about this extraordinary baby second-hand from travelling wisemen. So right from the beginning, Christ was destined to be revealed to this world through the poorest of the poor, ordinary workers… first.  And that set the scene for the rest of Jesus’ short life. He would always reach out to the people who were not rich, those who had no hope, and needed Him the most.

Maybe there were animals restlessly moving about in that tiny shelter, all around this new little family – we don’t really know. Let’s hope all that animal breathing kept them a little warmer in the cold clear night air! Meanwhile, there was no air freshener … no sterile hospital… no antibiotics!!  And no family helpers to assist Mary … just some straw, the floor, her inexperienced husband, and the inevitability of this baby coming … right now. 

What a totally scary place to give birth! There was no indoor plumbing either!! Ya might want to think about that. Christ was not born into a house … right from the beginning He had no home. Maybe Mary hoped He would be born where she had come from, with helpers all around her – but she and Joseph obeyed the law of the land and trotted off to a place far away to take part in a census. They took their chances … and then Almighty God said: “It’s time.”

Joseph himself had an enormous amount of trust.  I often talk about faith on this blog, and boy was his faith alive! He married Mary because of a dream. Sadly he could not give her and their new baby, the King of all Kings … a better place to stay! Such a huge responsibility for such a humble man. He was destined to protect this infant and remain obedient to what God had told him. How devoted to God’s purposes he was. This honourable young man, whose wife is going to give birth … to SomeOne else’s baby! He’s almost a footnote in this amazing story. Yet he was chosen to father God’s Son, when Jesus was a child.

The world was silent that night, and the only players in this little play were overwhelmed with awe and wonder. How could that be Almighty God Himself lying in a food trough? What could it possibly all mean? At that moment, He was just another newborn infant  … they are born every day.  Only those heavenly announcements made Him special. God made Himself known in an ordinary place, to ordinary people who were sitting around minding their own business. But when He speaks, this world gets turned right-side up!  Bless you! 👋🏻