A Moment In Time At Christmas

Christmas and the end of the year are both just around the corner.  Before I share about the blessing of following the prompting of the Holy Spirit; Please allow me to tell you that more than words can convey – I thank you for your encouragement, for your friendship and for your support of The Daily Rant (TDR).  I genuinely wish it were possible to meet, hug and shake the hand of every single subscriber and reader.

On behalf of Robert, the TDR prayer team the entire TDR team: thank you all, subscribers and readers.  Your prayers and support remain invaluable.

 

A Christmas Moment:

We say we want to follow the leading of the Lord, but how often do we ignore the leading of the Lord?  We talk about following the direction of the Holy Spirit, but how often do we hear or sense the Holy Spirit leading and/or prompting us to go in one direction, and we decide not to, because it would be inconvenient?  We look for the big blessings, but how many blessings do we miss because we ignore the prompting of the Lord?

I’ve heard people say they don’t believe God is interested in the little things in our lives.  These same people will talk about the lilies of the field and the fowls of the air as Jesus referenced in the Matthew 6:25-34 (KJV), even as they cling to the idea that God isn’t interested in the small things.  How many blessings and answers to prayer have people missed because they have embraced such errant beliefs?

Earlier this month I had spent the better part of the midday and afternoon looking for just the right Christmas decoration(s) for our front porch.  I was doing the legwork while my wife was busy at her office.

We wanted a rustic, small town, 1950s style of decorations such as we had both grown up with in our small town.  We had looked the Saturday before without success.  We had asked the Lord during our family devotions to bless us by finding the decorations we sought.  That weekend, when we had finished our family prayer, I said: “I believe the Lord’s going to lead us to the right place and we’ll find exactly what we’re looking for and it won’t cost us a ton of money.”  She agreed!

On this particular day, the thought came to me to stop in a hardware and lumber store in an off the beaten path area of a neighboring town.  I parked in the near empty parking lot and entered the store.  Suffice it to say, I had found Santa-land south of the North Pole.  Not only did they have some of the things we wanted, but they had the decorations at ridiculously low prices.  I phoned my wife and we planned to drive over Saturday morning and pick a couple things up – there was no way they were selling out everything they had.

On the way home, I felt prompted to drive to the a neighboring town on the other side of where we live.  There was a quirky thrift store in that town that just might have something we wanted.  I arrived and as I walked up to the entrance, on either side of the door was an item that would match perfectly with the decorative theme we envisioned.  I walked around the thrift store looking and making up my mind and then I left.  Before I left, I took another look at the item.

All the way home, I thought about the item I had left behind.  When I arrived home, as I carried a couple bottles of juice into the house, I said, I’m going back to the thrift shop and buy one of the two Christmas items.

The items were each $25.00.  At the register, I was told the items were discounted 25 percent, which meant that with tax, the item would cost me just under $20.00.

I returned home beaming and thanking the Lord.  But, the best was yet to come.  The seemingly little thing became a massive blessing when my wife arrived home.  She hadn’t noticed the piece on the front porch when she arrived.  As we stood on the front walk looking at the porch, she signed and with tears in her eyes half whispered, “it’s wonderful; perfect.  It’s so nice.”  I don’t know if I’ve ever loved her more than at that moment.

The point I am leading up to is that I would have missed the blessing of that moment if I had selfishly said, “I’m not going back to that shop now.”  Plus, I would have deprived her of a moment that took her back to days of her youth.

As we celebrate the birth of Messiah, I think about what the shepherds would have missed had they decided to ignore the instructions of the angel of the Lord and said, we can go in the morning.  It’s late and we’re tired.

If we are to be honest, we will acknowledge that in many instances it’s not that God isn’t interested; its that we decide to ignore His interest.  Experiencing that moment with my wife will remain one of the most special moments we’ve shared together.  Something so simple, and yet made perfect by love.

In the final analysis, the same thing can be said tangentially, about the shepherds experiencing their first glimpse of the Christ child – who looked like any other Jewish baby, but who in reality was eternally more.  Put in context with my opening paragraphs and decide what you think.