Bethlehem

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I'm not very good at letting God be God. 

I'm a control freak and an idealist and get caught up in petty anxieties and obsessive self-perfection. I panic when I make mistakes and stay awake late at night worrying about what people think of me. I cry (a lot) and yell at the tabernacle when I can't see precisely where my life is heading.

I try to get it right myself and end up chasing my tail, frustrated by my own limitations.

And it's right here, in my brokenness, that He asks me to bear Him to the world.

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"While they were in Bethlehem, the time came for her to have her baby."

Luke 2:6

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Bethlehem was not her home. 

Flung from security and familiarity, Mary faced the delivery of a first child far from anyone who knew her (save Joseph, whom I presume had little midwifery experience) and far from the place she must have imagined she would bring God's Word into the world. 

She was a pilgrim. She was temporarily homeless. She was alone. 

And His call came at that inconvenient moment.

How anxious those first contractions must have made her; worried that she wasn’t yet in a good place for for the arrival of the God who was already with her.

How wearying the rejection from homes and inns as her labour intensified – she must have longed to cry out, “Do you not know that I’m carrying the Saviour of the world?”

How mixed the relief of finally collapsing into a stable where she could rest her weary body – even if it was amidst the babble and stench of animals.

Bethlehem was not what she planned.

How humbling the realization that God’s plans are not our plans.

“Here? Now? How can this be?"

Bethlehem was her emptiness and her poverty in its most glorious moment.

She had nothing to receive Him into but two loving arms; nothing to give Him but that final 'yes', at an inconvenient time, in an inconvenient place.

One word – that same steadfast little fiat -  and the Word of God was born.

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"Be it done unto me according to your word."

Luke 1:38

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He calls me here in Bethlehem.

I am a broken vessel: anxious, weary, poor and limited. This life is my Bethlehem. I am that little town in which God chooses to deliver the Light of the world; so ill-prepared to receive such a great gift and so blind to the fact that it is already within me. 

In my limitations and my poverty; in my stupid pride and stubborn plans; in my exhaustion and emptiness; in this messy little stable - God is here.

Bethlehem is my emptiness and my poverty in its most glorious moment: for I have nothing to receive Him into but two loving arms; nothing to give Him but my yes.

Fiat, my God. Let your Word be born here.

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How silently, how silently

The wondrous gift is given!

So God imparts to human hearts

The blessings of His heaven

No ear may hear His coming

But in this world of sin

Where meek souls will receive Him still,

The dear Christ enters in.

O little town of Bethlehem

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AMDG