You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart. Jeremiah 29:13 (ESV)
In the Christmas Story in the Bible, there are lots of characters. We tend to focus on the main actors like Mary and Joseph, the Wise Men, the Shepherds. But we don’t look too much at the other players.
Take for example, the Wise Men. When they went into Jerusalem, they were asking everyone where Jesus was. No one even knew he was there. He was not on their radar. Even the Scribes and Pharisees who had the Scriptures memorized missed his arrival.
And then there were the Shepherds. They were the lowest in society yet the Angels appeared to them and pointed them to Jesus. They went, found him and then went all around telling everyone that he was there. But the Bible doesn’t say there was an onslaught of people rushing to see him. There didn’t seem to even be a blip on the radar.
Why were the Shepherds, totally uneducated and unrefined, and the Wise Men, foreigners and non-believers, able to find him? Why did God chose to reveal his Son to these?
I wonder if it is because they were open to receiving him, even if he didn’t look like what they thought he would. The people of Israel were looking for a conqueror. When Jesus showed up as a baby, they dismissed him because he didn’t fit their preconceived ideas. They were not willing to accept him for who he was. He didn’t fit in their box.
Makes me wonder. Am I doing what they did? Do I miss Jesus when he shows up because I was looking for something else? Do I lose sight of what he is trying to do in my life because I am so focused on what I think should happen and am not on where he is working?
I don’t want to be like the other characters in this story. I want to seek him. I want to see him however he decides to show up in my life. I want to be completely bold and go out on a limb to follow him even if it looks different than I think it should.
How about you? Will you join me?