As we come very close to Christmas, my Pastor reminded us of the story of the birth of Christ. Born in a manger, with loving parents, and the support of wise men and shepherds, we tend to see this picture as an overly romantic portrayal of what actually happened.
Mary, very heavily pregnant, and for the last ten hours or so sitting on a donkey, is awaiting a place to have the birth of the saviour of the world. Imagine being her husband Joseph, after being told there is no room at the inn thinking, “Well our boy is going to be the King of kings, so we are bound to get some sort of miracle upgrade”. Unfortunately for Joseph there was no ‘miracle upgrade’, no immediate blessing and no solution to make Mary and Jesus’ birth more comfortable.
I think as Christians we sometimes tend to get the concept of blessing and God’s will very wrong. Many of us equate things going well with God’s blessings, and things going wrong as God’s reproach. When things are not going to (our perfect) plan, we tend to think our situation is out of God’s will or we have failed God in some way. “Surely this can’t be God’s will that I don’t get this job / promotion / girlfriend / wife / house / car / boat etc.”
However, time and time again in the Bible, the most blessed people of God are the ones who have the most difficult time.
The Apostle Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 11:25, “Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was pelted with stones, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a day in the open sea…” As well as this he was lashed by Jews, beaten by the Gentiles, stoned, abused and thrown into prison… I think that if that happened in today’s world, we would tend to be asking Paul what he was doing wrong in the eyes of God (I, for example, would be giving him urgent career advice), rather than understanding this was God’s perfect plan for him.
This Christmas time let’s thank the Lord for the abundant blessings we have had this year, while also being open to His leading and direction in every area in our lives.
God bless and go for it!
Tom O’Neil
