God, You, & Luke 2: Day 6

Today started out like most all my others in recent years. The alarm went off at 5:30 a.m. That prompted me to roll over and hit the snooze button. After one or two smacks on it, I eventually threw off the covers and set about the tasks I do everyday.

Start a load of laundry.
Coffee and quiet time.
Check fb and twitter.
Check on my mom.
Send Lou off to work.
Breakfast with the girls.
Make lunches.
Take Mary Grace to school.
Back home to send other girls off to BHS.
Twitter/mail/instagram check.
Help mom with her morning tasks.
Back to the laundry room...

The list could go on and on, just like yours could.

Every day, I get up and do my daily work - which is exactly what the shepherds were doing. Verse 8 describes their daily (nightly) work:


 "And in the same region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night."

They kept watch over their flock. At night.

It's one thing to do your work during the day, when a body is wired to be awake - but to have to do your work at night, when every bone in your body screams to lie down, is a whole different kettle of fish. I always feel for the night shift.

But I digress. The point is, the shepherds were doing what they typically did. I doubt they went into every night thinking something stupendous might happen at any moment.

But something stupendous did happen that night. On a night when they were doing their normal every day stuff.

This thought was a good reminder to me. Going about your everyday stuff is good and right and necessary. Reference that abbreviated list I made earlier. Those things are good and right and necessary. And, that stuff brings me joy (most days;).

But just like Jesus came this first time - on what looked like a normal day, he's gonna come back again - on a day that will probably start out like any other.

I need to remind myself of that.  Reminding myself of that will help keep what matters most mattering most. He's going to interrupt history again in another stupendous way.

He's. coming. back.

It amazes me that God used Luke 2:8, a verse about shepherds keeping watch over their flock at night, to remind me of something big and amazing coming sometime in the future.

I've found that's how it is a lot of times when you read the Bible. You think you are going one place, and God ends up taking you somewhere else. He knows what your soul needs to hear that day.

He's good like that.