Christmas Is for You: God’s provision may not look the way we’d choose

God sent an angel to warn Mary and Joseph about an upcoming killing spree. They heeded the warning and escaped with their child in time to avoid King Herod’s horror. Soon every toddler boy in Bethlehem died by the paranoid king’s edict. But not Jesus.

God had acted to protect His Son. One might wonder why he didn’t intervene to save all the little boys in Bethlehem.

He could have struck Herod dead.
He could have warned every parent to take their child and get out of town.
He could have blinded Herod’s soldiers so they wouldn’t find the boys.

Instead, he let them die.

All of which leads me to a couple of thoughts about how God acts.

It seems to me God’s purposes are usually bigger and broader than our particular problems. In this case, it was too soon for Jesus to die. God intervened, but only to prevent his purpose for sending Jesus from being thwarted.

I’m also reminded that God generally allows us to do what we want. He does not intrude on human will. He didn’t magically whisk Joseph and his family to Egypt against their will. They chose to believe and obey him. And he didn’t interfere with all the evil schemes of the paranoid king. He allowed him to order murder.

I think we’re wise not to expect supernatural protection against the evils confronting us. In a broken world, bad things happen. The proud make decisions that hurt people around them. The selfish ignore the pain or problems of people who get in their way. Disease and pestilence thrive in a mismanaged world, spawning distress and death.

Today’s text reminds us that anguish and agony have existed throughout the centuries. God sees and cares about it all, but seldom does he suspend the natural laws of the universe to make things go our way.

Instead, he has provided a path to hope beyond the setbacks and sadness common to most of us. His actions recorded in today’s text were protecting that path.

God offers meaning in this life to those who yield themselves to Jesus, and then he promises even more: life beyond the roadblocks and rubble of our earthly existence.

We might wish for a miracle to restore the health of the sufferer in our care. Meanwhile, we can praise God for the miracles accompanying the birth and life and death of Jesus. In him we find mission and meaning, regardless of life’s details we wish were different.

Read: Matthew 2:13-18
Pray: “Thank you, God, for Jesus, who gives our lives meaning despite its difficulties and hope despite our grief.”