The Christmas story offers hope and joy — but it also offers important lessons. Each person that played a part in the story of Jesus’ birth was placed in a situation that did not make sense. They had reason after reason to doubt what was to take place, and they especially had reasons to doubt how they could be involved. We, too, often feel as if God’s plan for our lives is too impossible — too good to be true. We have our disqualifications, our misunderstandings, and our personal objections. Yet, while those may all be legitimate on the surface, God’s plan supersedes them all — just like what took place throughout the events in and around Jesus’ birth.