FAMILY IT! — Wednesday Family Devotional — “Unexpected Events”

Supplies: Bible

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One of the biggest words to work its way into our culture in the last two decades is “vision.”  Bill Hybels defines vision as a preferred picture of the future.  It’s your dream for some part of your life.  School, relationships, business, personal health, family life, anything that involves your personal future.  What are some of your dreams for your future?  What’s your personal vision?  Maybe it has to do with something big, like your career or getting married.  Or it could be something on a smaller scale, like what you envision this Christmas will be like.  Pick one for some area of your life and share it with your family.  

Visions can be as helpful as their hype.  They help us focus our energy, give us guidance for decisions, and direct us as we plan for next steps.  They can be incredibly beneficial…until reality happens.  The one big problem with vision is that our preferred pictures of our future, our dreams, don’t always match up with reality.  Then we have to figure out how to deal with the discrepancy.  My first experience with this came the Christmas I was seven.  I had many things on my list that year, like most seven-year-olds, but the biggest by far was a Barbie DreamHouse (circa 1980).  I knew better than to expect something so grand, but when I got to my grandparents house on Christmas Eve, under the tree was a ginormous gift with MY name on it.  Could it be???  I spent rest of the night dreaming about that DreamHouse, certain that that’s what I’d be unwrapping.  The next morning I waited patiently while other presents were opened.  I watched everyone fawn over my toddler cousin and her new shopping cart.  Finally, the box was pulled out from under the tree and slid over to me.  I ripped off the paper and stared in amazement…at the child-sized electric organ inside.  Can you hear my crest falling, even 33 years later?  The gap between dream and reality opened and swallowed me whole.  It was not a pleasant day. 

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I think today’s passage is another great example of vision colliding with reality.  Read Luke 2:1-7 together as a family.  This is a story you’ve heard dozens of times.  Try reading it with fresh ears this time.  Think about each part carefully.

THINK

There’s no way to really know for sure, but I’d bet just about every penny I had that this was not Mary’s vision for this moment in her life.  While it was her first time personally, she had probably seen other women give birth.  Her “dream” likely involved a comfortable and familiar place surrounded by people she knew who knew what they were doing, with her husband likely pacing outside.  A typical first century, middle eastern birth, with all it’s joys and traditions.  Now interject reality.  

It cracks me up how few details there are about the actual birth of Jesus.  Read verses 6 and 7 again.  How simplistic is that description!  The author treats it like it was an every day event:  Mary went into labor, she had the baby, and then put him in a feed trough because the Super 8 was full—what’s the big deal? Hello???  She’s in the streets of a strange town in full-blown labor.  The people around her are not exactly friendly—no one would even open their house to this poor couple, even though their circumstances were extreme.  Instead of her dream delivery, she had to settle on a stinky barn surrounded by animals and a likely frantic husband trying to help.  I don’t care who you are, this is no one’s vision for how to bring a baby into the world.  

But here’s the best part.  Skip down a bit and read Luke 2:19.  Mary could have thrown a fit.  She could have fallen into a pit of depression left by the gap between vision and reality.  She could have let bitterness build toward God—this was HIS plan, after all.  But instead, Mary chose to treasure the events.  No, it was not fun.  No, it was not pretty.  In fact, I can’t think of a single enjoyable thing about the whole scenario.  (I don’t care how much you like animals, no one wants a cow in the delivery room.)  And yet Mary was able to find solace in God’s events.  She found treasure in her circumstances and held them close to her heart.  

APPLY

How are we going to handle unexpected events?  How will we deal with the inevitable collision between vision and reality, God’s reality?  When we get passed over for the team?  When we don’t get into our first choice of schools?  When we find ourselves in a job we despise?  When Prince Charming turns out to be a frog?  When the pregnancy tests keep coming back negative?  When the cancer tests keep coming back positive?  What will we do when we don’t get what we want for Christmas?  

It will happen.  It will.  Today, tomorrow, in forty years—sometime reality will fall short of your vision.  How will you choose to handle it?  It may last a moment or a season.   But however long it is, you can choose to find the treasure inside.  Look for Jesus in those gaps, and you will find Him.  Mary knew, no matter what her circumstances, that she was sitting in that barn cradling the Savior, the Christ.  Remember that now, no matter what your circumstances, the Savior, the Christ, is cradling you.

PRAY

Loving Jesus, we thank You so much for that giant step You took in leaving Your throne and coming here, as a babe in arms, so that through Your sacrifice, we could know salvation.  We are responsible for the deadly gap between God’s vision and our sin-stained reality, but You bridged that gap on the cross so that we could know true peace and fulfillment.  Help us pass on Your legacy!  In Your Holy Name we pray, Amen.

REPLY

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