So, what am I here after? Why did I get out of bed today? What’s my purpose? We live in a time and place, when these questions whispered as they are in the deep hiding places of every human soul, are drowned out by the orchestra of anxieties, demands, duties, and stressors. Does the sheer madness of this over-active, over-stimulated, over-entertained, over-informed, over-stretched, over-filled, over-loaded, over-expected life make you just want to throw it all in? Gigabytes of knowledge incessantly pound away at the hard drive between our ears so we never have the chance to defragment, clean disk, or reboot.

A call was placed on your soul. A plan was hatched in the mind of God for who you would become, for what you would be, for how you would become a coworker with God in the renewal and salvation of the world. You were set apart and given a noble and holy task, one that no one else can perform. God is proud of you. Those words of God proclaimed over Jesus at his baptism – God says those words over you – you are my daughter, my son, my beloved, with whom I am well pleased. So let’s be clear what this job is that God called you to when you were baptized. To be deeply invested in the murky lives of men and women. To be intimately involved with God in influencing the culture of your workplace, your family, your social network; changing lives, transforming society, cleaning the dirt.

This infant is transforming Egypt from a land of captivity into a new place of liberty. He is only a few months old, but he’s already redeeming the past. Imagine what he’ll do when he grows up. Our pasts can be redeemed. Places where we fear to go can become sanctuaries of peace – the dwelling places of God. Where is the place you fear to go – in your mind or in your physical world. Maybe this twelfth day of Christmas God has one more gift for you – not drummers drumming, but the transformation of the painful place, the cruel place, the place of captivity – into the place where the Savior lives.

This is what makes Joseph the Carpenter such an amazing saint. He has his fears, he has his pride, he has his doubts, but he holds them lightly, and when God asks, he gives them up. He exchanges his fear of the future for the Greatest of gifts. He regifts those feelings that drive him from the woman he loves; regifts the pride that frets more about his reputation than about his loved-ones; regifts the skepticism that labels his betrothed is a cheat; regifts the belief that God doesn’t do miracles. Joseph regifts a gloomy future – a life of resentment, anger, pain, restlessness, regret, the prospect of a blighted, shriveled life – an existence ruminating on his hurt and victimhood; and in its place he accepts the gift of being step-son to God’s miracle.

Far from being the enemy we fear, disillusionment is actually a friend. Until we become thoroughly fed up with a person, a job, a situation that is out of your control, you can’t truly receive the blessing that hides deep within it. You shall know the truth, says Jesus, and the truth shall set you free, not illusions. Or, as, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German pastor martyred by the Nazis, put it, “The sooner the shock of disillusionment comes to an individual and to a community the better for both.”

Why the disguise? Why did the King of All There Is come to his world like a pauper? Love. Why does he still walk the streets of Union County unrecognized? Love. Why does he move delicately, invisibly, but oh so beautifully in your life? Love. The kingdom of God is not a matter of power and show, it’s about love – for his creation, its people, and you. For those you love, for those in need, for those in pain. It was for love he came; it was to die he came.

The God Of Now by Rev. Duncan Johnston

If our hearts are focused on what we lack instead of what we have, then we will be anxious. "There’s only so much money to go around, only so much happiness, only so much love, only so much God. If other people are enjoying these, then there’s less available for me. "

If there’s not enough of God’s blessing to go around then we would be right to compete for God’s love, to fight for material things, to horde what we have, to be defensive, to be suspicious of other people, to reject the outsider, to close ranks and close borders, to shun risk, to settle for what we have and dedicate our energy to making sure no one else shares in it. What small minds, miniscule hearts, deformed and suffering spirits we endure when we focus on what we lack instead of celebrating what we have.

So, I’m downsizing my vocabulary. I’ve decided that looking at my circumstances and labelling them ‘deserved’ or ‘undeserved’ is a waste of time. If I simply ignore the concept of deserved and undeserved then I’d be freer to accept each day as it comes and receive its gifts. And that may help me forgive my enemies more easily.

So, I’m getting rid of the words ‘deserving and undeserving’, and I’m also throwing out the words ‘good and bad’, when I use them to describe events that happen to me. Because, how do I know what’s good or bad?

No matter where I go in life I will always see myself as a Philadelphian, Ah, the City of Brotherly Shove…I mean Love. And, so as to not exclude, we say, “the City of Brotherly and Sisterly love. Amen? (I said, “Amen?”).

Well, if that is true, someone please tell that to the PPA. The Philadelphia Parking Authority. An institution that is, by nature of its role in the city, anything but ‘brotherly’, ‘sisterly’ or ‘loving’. I don’t begrudge them. Much. Although I am fairly certain that I got a parking ticket from them…last week…here…in Mountainside…in New Jersery…they are relentless!