You can’t trust someone enough to step out in faith unless you know a little bit about who they are. That’s why God revealed himself to Abram (and to us) as the God who likes to recruit us to His team, who is clearly in charge, and who focuses on the future.
God likes to interrupt our comfortable, familiar lives with crazy invitations to step out into the unknown with Him. It’s easy to refuse and just protect our predictable pleasures, but if we do, we will be missing the miracle waiting for us out in the unknown.
Joy came to Mary differently than it came to Elizabeth – but we can benefit from looking at both!
God expected humanity to respond to the good news of the Savior’s arrival with great joy…but what if it doesn’t come naturally to us?
Even a quick look at the Christmas story reveals that God was asking for a lot more than just HOPE from the main characters!
So…why didn’t Jesus come a LOT sooner?
Without the reality of darkness there would be no Christmas at all.