This is the Christmas season. There’s no doubt about that but the first Christmas was not filled shopping malls and carts and long lines and coupons and getting on the internet. It was filled trouble and test and trials and I want to ask you, whether you’re celebrating or frustrated. Can God trust you with trouble? Take a look at this.
Almost titled this message mother wit because I now realize that it’s the remaining of nectar of truth that has survived through the struggles of life. It’s essence and aroma permeates the soul of the student and stays with you even after your mother wit is gone because her wisdom is the nectar and the composite of what he learned through the ad adversity and the things of life. You can’t have it at 15. You can’t have mother withat 20. You can’t have mother wit it’s what is left. It’s what works.
Doesn’t happen much now but we huddle. We attack things together and survive things together so when my wife came out of surgery I prayed before she went in and she came out of surgery in the recovery room and the intensive care area. Anesthesiologist walked out and she’s coming out and she came out praising God and thanking God and glorifying God. And once she got herself together and we spent a few moments all the kids came around the bed so all the kids and me are around the bed and this was one of the life lessons I’ll never forget. I cannot articulate it like she did.
It’s a teaching moment. Not the sort of thing most men would do had we regained consciousness we would appreciate the support of the family and friend but my wife was touching all the children and I knew she was remembering, touching them before and feeling them in her body in a way she went somewhere I couldn’t go and she was crying. She said oh, I can feel my children. And the whole room was in tears because it was the kind of communication that requires no speech. Through the connectivity that pre-existed birth. I can feel my children. Again and I step back because this was a mother moment. You couldn’t touch it. It was just somewhere else. I was in awe at the bond. I got my feel in though. Put my face out there too. Feel me. I’m right here.
There are times I have a tendency as a man to be insensitive of certain things related to femininity and she’ll have to teach me and I become a student. One of those things the whole next of giving birth. And wanting to give birth and the whole process is something that I see through a glass darkly. I have never wanted to be pregnant. But there’s something inside me living and kicking makes me sick. I just – I cannot see what it’s about that your stomach moving around because there’s a body in front of you. That is a guy thing but she had to help me understand why that would be wonderful and how your body changes and your attitude changes and there’s a bonding that takes place and there’s a loving that begins before birth.
There’s an excitement there that you know, I was there when ya’ll was born. I was excited. I was for you. I was hoping you come out alright. Cheering you on. Listen to bababhababa here come another one. For those of you that let’s you know the contractions is coming. I tell everyone we were having a baby. You know how we do. We having a baby. But that wasn’t true. She was having baby. I was eating the hospital food. Yeah. Yeah. Expectations are everything. They’re just, it’s amazing when you have this expectation and it an exciting moment.
If you want to make God laughed, tell him what you got planned. And in the process of planning for this special day with this special person with your special friends an interruption occurs. God will interrupt your plans. He doesn’t care how much money you spend, how long you dreamed, how you envisioned you have everything set up and then when I’m 22 and by the time I’m 28 and then I’ll be right here. And you frame it how it’s going to go and he’ll knock it all over the floor.
Angel comes in and says Mary you’ve been highly may favored amongst women. That’s good. That’s good news. Wonderful. I got favor. Favor. Hmm… Yeah. Been highly favored you shall bring forth a son. I planned that. After I get married I’m going to have a child. It’s going to happen when it’s crazy not convenient. I thought you said I was favored? Um… I’m going to be like pregnant? Like the first woman with an unexplainable pregnancy? How – um… The Bible says she pondered these things in her heart.
God says stuff that makes you think. He takes you through things that you don’t talk about. You ponder them in your heart. Why did I come up the way I came up? Why did I go through what I went through? Why are we relocating. Why am I out of a job after 20 years? I’m the only one that’s ever asked God why. God does things that are confusing. He does some things that are confusing. There’s some things that are unexplainable. He puts your life in crazy ways. How can you tell this girl she has favor and when I leave you’re going to be pregnant and they’re going to be looking at you and you’re going to be riding back of a donkey with no place to stay. Birth your baby in a barn. How is that favor?
If you’re not careful we have a tendency to process things. This is good. That is bad. This is good. That is bad. This is a good job. That is a bad job. This is a good house, that is a bad house. This is a good person. That is a bad person. As long as you think it will rally about life you will be confused because life is quite paradoxical. If you meet somebody bad you find out they have good qualities. And if you get around somebody that you think is really good and you hang around close enough.
Your philosophies are blown away over who’s good and bad because sometimes the person you thought was bad and the person you thought was good wouldn’t. And you learn not to be so cynical and critical and so conclusive and premature in your understanding to think you know some much. It takes all of your life to figure out life. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? Should I be happy or cry? I’m confused. We, we, we celebrate when they come and cry when they leave but the Bible says that backwards. The Bible said we should cry when they come and celebrate when they leave.
Have you ever been crying about something you should have been shouting about? Or shouting about something you should have been crying about and it took you ten years to realize the thing that you cried about brought you the most joy and the thing that you were excited about brought all kinds of hell in your life? I’m just saying. I’m just saying. I’m just saying. Hold your wisdom for a while because wisdom works slow. Don’t be so quick to tell everyone what will be because you might not be as smart as you think you are. You may have misdiagnosed a moment.
God said you have been highly favored and right after his exodus, she has to go tell Joseph, um… Honey? Um… I’m not going to be able to wear that gown. And now you go into the test that comes before triumph and the frustrations that come before favor. Because her boyfriend says, I’m out. I’m going to walk out quietly. I’m done. I am not going to the country club and tell my friends at the golfing tournament that my girlfriend is pregnant with the Holy Ghost. I’m out. I’m just out. I’m just out.
Whenever God does something you don’t understand you have a tendency to want to back out. But the real truth of the matter is, life is designed to try your staying power. Your staying power. Are you having been able to stand? Can you stand when you don’t understand? When favor wears the clothes of frustration adorned with the jewelry of failure and you question in your own mind, if I’m favored, why am I pregnant on the back of a donkey in the hot Palestinian heat looking for a place to stay to give birth to a holy child that ends up born in a dirty place?
And so it was the Bible says with the birth of Jesus. It was an oxymoron. Holy Child born for a horrible place. Spoused to a virgin. Joseph is spoused to a virgin who is pregnant by a Ghost. And in the midst of planning for the wording now we are planning for divorce and now the life has all become discombobulated because it’s no longer smooth sailing or predictable. It’s not black or white or right or wrong. Up or down. In or out. It’s complicated.
If you ever told your life story. Great woman and wonderful woman. It’s complicated. I had a good childhood but it’s complicated. Well that part right there, um… Well I’m strong about most things but – life is complicated. The virgin teaches us how to be consistent when life is complicated. How to be steadfast and a bounding in the purpose of God.
While you are confused and pondering in your heart what in the world is going on in my life? And then, when I think about it, I think if you’re going to bring your son in the world for the first time, God, why is he not born in a palace? Escorted by angels and an environment like that? Why would you choose the opposite? The messy. Christ the Lord is born in a messy relationship by a couple on the run and a pregnant sweating woman gives birth to a holy child and doesn’t even have any cloths to wrap around him and takes the milk rags with the sour milk expelled from the cows and wraps the milk of the word in the milk of the cows. What you call swaddling cloths were milk rags laying around in the barn and God chose this method to make his entrance.
And you see, you can have favor. But that doesn’t mean you don’t have fear. You can have all the favor you want to but you’re going to have some frustration. Don’t you sit there for one moment with your pretty self acting like your life was a straight line of unchallenged successes. How dare you sit there beside your little sweet muffin and act like you were always right. I’m right and he’s wrong.
It’s amazing counseling couples they come in your office and they’ve already decided who is right and wrong so they have predetermined scripts not knowing that everyone thinks they’re right. And when you really begin to unravel it, both of them are a little bit right and a little bit wrong. And such is life. It’s this complicated situation and the virgin Mary teaches us that you can be, you can have a visitation from an angel and still ride on a donkey. The Holy Ghost can come upon you, and you can still have no place to stay. But that which is within you can beacon received by the Holy Ghost and that which is around you can be demonic and angry and ready to give up and walk out the door and your job, should you choose to accept it is to survive it all.