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

Supplies: Bible

READ

This week, PoC K.I.D.S. wraps up our “Unexpected Christmas” series as we look at the last part of the nativity story.  Read Luke 2:8-18 and Matthew 2:1-2, 7-11.

SHARE 

“Unexpected guest” is not a phrase one hears much these days.  It’s become pretty taboo to arrive at someone’s house unannounced, with the possible exception of family or close friends.  Gone are the days of the pastor just showing up on your doorstep or a neighbor randomly dropping by for coffee and a chat.  It just doesn’t happen.  Admit it—the thought of someone knocking on your door right now to sit down and just visit inspires panic in many of us.  “My house is a disaster area—what will they think?”  “I have so much to do, and this will mess with my plans for the day.”  “Why are they here?  What do they want?”  Even an unexpected knock at the door drives most of us to the window instead of the knob.  (We want to know to whom we’re opening the door!)  Can you think of a time when you had to process an unexpected guest?  What was the situation?  How did you handle it?

The most glaring example in my mind is Christmas 2007.  This was a special holiday for me—it was my first Christmas as a mom.  Our firstborn was just two weeks old when Advent started, and I was uber excited.  I had so many thoughts about how to make the holiday special for the first grandchild, and it culminated with a celebration on Christmas Day with both sides of our family.  (Hi, I’m Karin, and I’m a control freak.)  It was going to be a picture postcard: two parents, four grandparents, two great-grandparents, and an uncle, all around our tree, all oohing and ahhing over my absolutely adorable daughter.   Move over, Norman Rockwell!  Then, like the day before (or maybe three), my mother-in-law called to inform us that she was bringing a guest.  A guest!  To MY house!  For MY special first Christmas with my baby.  And not a friend of the family or distant relative guest.  This was a stranger!  Some recent transplant to the area with no real job or connections beyond my mother and brother-in-law.  And now he was going to bust in on my postcard picture!  I was too gracious to refuse him, but my frustration (insert: wrath) bubbled not too far under the surface.  I did almost nothing to welcome him and instead found myself resenting just about everything he did…like when my mother-in-law suggested he be the one to open my daughter’s presents (since she obviously couldn’t do it herself).  As if!  I look back with true shame at my behavior that day.

THINK

Oh, how I wish I had been like Mary!  After being shut out by the town she was visiting, she turned around and opened her makeshift delivery room to absolute strangers.  And this wasn’t just Joseph’s extended family she hadn’t met yet.  These were dirty, smelly, lowly shepherds kneeling around her barely-a-few-hours-old child.  Many months later, there were more unexpected guests.  These visitors came dressed in finer clothes, for sure, but their language and customs were likely very strange.  Even the gifts they brought, though valuable, were incredibly odd.  But just like she did with the shepherds, Mary opened her home to these “wise men.”  Her goal for both was the same: she wanted to share Jesus with them.

APPLY

As if I didn’t feel bad enough from my poor behavior seven Christmases ago, now the Holy Spirit is really pinching.  Because the reality is unexpected guests show up in our lives.  Not just at the door or even around our holiday table.  They show up at work.  They pop up at school.  They drop into our neighborhood, even our families.  Sometimes they come dressed as strangers, and sometimes they come as people we know but don’t really like.  Sometimes they bring absolutely nothing into the relationship—no help, no apparent value or benefit.  At other times, they bring too much.  They’re loaded down with critical words, manipulative behaviors, or just loads of baggage.  It’s not who we were looking for, and yet here they are sitting next to us in math or wearing a “Manager” name tag at work or sporting a new name, like “in-law.”  It’s not who we were expecting, and yet they’re here.  With us.  In our world.  In our space.

What are we going to do?  Are we going to get huffy because these people dared to knock on our proverbial doors of life unannounced?  Or are we going to be like Mary?  Are we willing to set aside the inconvenience and intrusive feelings and just share Jesus with them?  That’s all we’re asked to do.  In fact, if God is sending people our way, that’s probably why.  I did not share Jesus with that young man that Christmas.  Thankfully, my mother-in-law did.  She shared Jesus that day and many days after.  In fact, she and that “stranger” became so close that he traveled back to Illinois this summer to serve as one of her pallbearers.  Oh, what a difference Jesus makes!  Will you share Jesus with someone unexpected this Christmas?

PRAY

Precious Jesus, thank You for coming to us, for trading Your royal robes for swaddling clothes.  You came unexpectedly into this world, for sure.  You came unexpectedly into our hearts, as well.  Guide us and help us now, Holy Spirit, as we seek to share the Prince of Peace with the unexpected people you’ve brought into our lives.  In Jesus’ Holy Name we pray, Amen.

REPLY

Did you and your family enjoy this devotional blog?  We'd love to know about it!  Our hope is to continue providing this weekly opportunity for families to do a devotion together.  If your family did this devotion, please shoot us an email, text or just post a comment to this blog.