I hope that you are among those who had a Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year — but I know that not everyone did. Our lives are often very difficult, and if you’ve never noticed, problems don’t usually take off for the holidays! I think of my mom & step father. He has just finished his treatments for a kind of bone cancer, and is doing ok with it right now — but his son is struggling with cancer as well — and over the holiday they discovered that his daughter now has a serious brain tumor. My Mom told my sister that if she came up for the holiday, she was going to have to bring Christmas with her, because there wasn’t much Christmas at their house.
And that is the world we live in, isn’t it? There is pain, there are hardships, and sickness, and death — even for the Christian. We are not exempt from suffering just because we follow the Lord — in fact, to be honest, sometimes we have MORE of those difficulties because we are His. But it is important for us as we face these things, to keep our eyes on the Lord, and to trust & obey Him. Our passage for today is very fitting for this time of year; it is a followup from scriptures that we often associate with the Christmas season: the visit of the magi to the young Christ, and the gifts they brought Him. We find here in the aftermath of that sweet visit a tragedy the likes of which many of us may never see — but we also find that even in these tragic times, God is still working in His Providence. And we need to learn here that we can trust God as we walk through our fallen world. Continue reading
shawnethomas 