When I look back at where I was born, I am amazed at all I’ve experienced since then. I was the third child of my very young parents, my mother still in her teens, my father doing his best to keep the roof over our heads. Those were tough years for them, yet, I was oblivious to the ups and downs of life, safe in the care of people who loved me. We each have a story, a beginning, a time when we totally depended on our families and the world around us to keep us safe and help us grow.
As we approach Christmas and the birth of baby Jesus, we might ponder his young parents traveling to Bethlehem and a very uncertain future. They didn’t have all the answers, they just knew they had to follow the laws of the land and be counted for the census. They knew it would be a tough journey, but they moved forward. Jesus came to earth as the child of Mary and Joseph, but He was more than that, for He was the Son of God.
You came to earth as the child of your parents, but because of Jesus, and because of God’s love for you, you are also a child of God, redeemed for eternity. That means no matter where you were born, God sees you and knows you. No matter how far you’ve traveled or how many ups and downs you’ve experienced, the journey has enlightened your path and given you purpose. You were called out of that place you were born to become all that God designed you to be.
Isn’t it an amazing thought that God sent His Son into the world in the form of a baby, so that hearts would immediately be drawn to Him and lives would be changed? The ancients anticipated His arrival, followed the stars, harkened to the angels, all to get a glimpse of Him. Let us join them this Christmas, trusting that no matter how rough things are, or how far we’ve traveled, that the journey before us is ever and always to find peace in the One we can depend on, the One who loves us unconditionally, and keeps us as His own.
John 1: 12 says, “But those who did welcome him, those who believed in his name, he authorized to become God’s children, born not from blood nor from human desire or passion, but born from God.”
Merry Christmas to all God’s children.