Advent Devotional: Day 20
“And having been warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, they returned to their country by another route.”
All my life, I never really gave those Magi much thought. I mean, we all know about them, we’ve sung the song a thousand times, but have you ever really thought about this whole scenario surrounding their story?
It is really curious when you look at the facts, that they were most likely Gentiles who traveled afar, really far … following a star. Now who in their right mind would go to such lengths to see if the star led anywhere and if so, it would be a King of a religion you didn’t even embrace. My flesh tells me that does not make any sense.
Then I take a step back and consider how God’s ways are not our ways. What I so unknowingly call crazy makes perfect sense in God’s plan. These traveling men came to find the Unexpected. He was lying in a manger! I have to believe they really got it standing in the presence of the Son of God. They knew exactly what they were doing as they avoided Herod on the return home to do who knows what with this revelation they just experienced. One step could have stood between them and the experience of a lifetime.
It makes me think of my own life. How many times has God laid before me an opportunity that I interpreted as crazy, unattainable, or even scary. Hindsight has shown me that He has used all those things to increase my faith in Him. Doesn’t attaining the unattainable just prove who HE is? Expecting the unexpected just seems to me the next level. I want to be there, waking each morning anticipating what He has in store for me, no longer avoiding the unexpected (aka unknown), no longer fearing what is to come, no matter what. I want to expect the unexpected. Because God can do what I can’t. He just calls me to take that first step to my experience of a lifetime.
I hope you too have the desire to take that first step
“Thank You, Lord, for Your patience and generosity with us. I am so sorry for the times I have gotten in the way. Thanks for not giving up on us. Amen.”
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