I’m glad I’m not writing the story. If I were, I would miss all the major
miracles and write in the minor ones. This is because God’s timing is not my timing—I would look
for the lesser miracle every time because the greater miracle brings pain. As I read the account of Jesus raising
Lazarus from the dead (John 11), I realized that my prayers would have been for
Jesus to get there just in time to heal him.
In my zeal for Lazarus, Mary, and Martha to miss the pain of Lazarus
dying and the sister’s grief, I would have missed the greater miracle and the
lesson about Jesus being the resurrection and the life. My desire to help them avoid pain and
struggle would have resulted in a minor miracle, not a major one that would
turn the world on its ear.
It is the same with the Christmas
story. If I had been writing the story,
I would have had Jesus born in a comfortable castle, or at least in the
inn. Most preachers yield to the temptation
to condemn the inn keeper, not realizing that he just might have recognized
that a first century inn, with a bunch of smelly men sleeping in one large room
just might not have been the safest, most secure location for what must have
looked like an impending birth. Perhaps
he thought the smells of a stable would have been preferable to the smells of
an inn. Or, perhaps there just wasn’t
any room, and he sent them to the only place he had left—the stable. Whatever, if I had been writing the story, I
would have written in people of power coming from Jerusalem to see the baby, not mundane,
shepherds who most likely smelled of the outdoors, let alone sheep.
If I had been writing the story, I
would have missed the miracle of Christmas: The God of the universe entering
earth in a smelly stable.
How often I have my preferred story line for my life—called
prayer. I declare to God what I want, as
if He were a short-order cook. Only, my
plan for my life, my story line, is not God’s story line. My story line, my prayers, would lead away
from pain, struggle, and problems. God’s
story line leads through the pain, struggle, and problems, because that is
precisely where He will most clearly reveal Himself… Even though I walk through the valley of the
shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; PS 23:4
Yes, Jesus embraced the cross after gracing a stable with
His personal presence. His Story writes
in a greater, though more painful, miracle.
As much as I don’t like it, God’s story for me is different than mine. But whatever was to my profit I now consider
loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss
compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose
sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ
and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the
law, but that which is through faith in Christ--the righteousness that comes
from God and is by faith. I want to know Christ and the power of his
resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him
in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead. PHP
3:7:-11
I’m glad He is writing the story rather than
me, because I’d miss Christmas in my life if I was the writer! As much as it
might hurt, I want my prayers to be more for His will than my freedom from
pain.
