Telling Your Story
It surely seems like the world is upside down today. News pundits are screaming, Washington, D.C. is boiling, and social media is fueling the fire. Conditions on the farm aren't any better between weather and prices. Anxiety is at an all-time high.
Everything is upside down from the way it is supposed to be, not just during the season of Advent, but the world—our own personal worlds—should be a little more peaceful and a lot less stressful all year round. After all, it was the Messiah's arrival that really flipped the world on its head more than 2,000 years ago.
As a December challenge, I've been reading through Luke, one chapter per day. The book's 24 chapters will lead me nicely up to Christmas day. In the meantime, I've covered one full account of the Messiah's life on earth. It wasn't just a baby being born in Bethlehem in a barn with animals that turned the tables on the world. It was the sum of the next 30 some years.
The thought keeps recurring to me of how, with every recorded action and teaching, that he was turning the world upside down one person at a time. He raised the Centurion's daughter from the dead, he fed 5,000 people with the help of 12 men—one person at a time. He ate dinner in the home of a person who was a criminal but never charged or caught. Demons left their human body where they comfortably created chaos for the community and agony for the individual. Can you imagine watching a herd of hogs throwing themselves to their deaths? Most of us have seen hogs racing in their pens, barns or outdoor lots. If I close my eyes, I can see, hear and smell the ruckus. And then they all jump of a cliff to their deaths? Imagine explaining THAT to your boss. It was more than one person whose world flipped that day.
Throughout his life, Jesus did and said the unexpected—from birth through death, and even after he arose. He didn't swoop in with magnificent power to restore Jewish civilization with sword and blood as the Jewish elite expected. Instead, he worked his way through and around the countryside and told people to be nice to each other, and practiced being nice by giving individuals food, peace, health and even life. He disobeyed the laws of the church by healing and harvesting food to quiet the roar in their bellies on the Sabbath. Eventually, he gave us all the opportunity at new life both here and beyond the grave.
This Christmas, I hope your world is turned upside down with the peace of Christ the child and Christ the Savior. I pray you find peace, strength and love in the power and promises of the One who was born to change the course of world forever.
Merry Christmas!
Bev Berens is a freelance writer and FFA parent from Holland, Mich. She can be contacted at uphillfarm494@yahoo.com.