There are moments when life doesn’t move in the direction you want it. Moses and the Israelites experienced that. Their own choices turned a quick trip from Egypt to the Promised Land into forty years of wandering. They tried to write the story themselves and ended up changing the direction of their journey. What happens when we face those unexpected detours? When the story gets longer and harder than it has to be?

No good deed goes unpunished is the old saying. Moses goes where God sends him and instead of life getting easier, it gets harder. Every great story has conflict along the way. How we deal with that conflict determines the trajectory of our story.

After an eventful beginning to his life, Moses settled into an ordinary existence. He married, had kids, and got a job from his father-in-law. But God stepped into the ordinariness of his life and offered him a moment to step into a larger story—a story that would change lives for generations. Does God still offer those moments to people? To you? This week we’ll consider the moments where God breaks into our ordinariness and offers us a choice.

There are parts of life we can’t change—where we were born, the consequences of our actions, the time in which we live. Moses would’ve never chosen the setting for his life. The setting of his life was all wrong. But still, the unchosen beginnings provided a window for God to something amazing. Every one of us has things about our history we wish we could change, but what if instead, we allowed God to use our setting?

The day of Epiphany celebrates the arrival of the magi at the home of the infant Jesus.

Looking back we see the many ways God has moved through us and in us.

Love is our deepest need. We want to be loved. We want to give love. So often we hide that need beyond the piles of stuff we want and get. Christmas is God’s answer to our human longing for love.

At some point, we’ll sing “Joy to the World,” and wonder, “this world?” Joy can be hard to find in the midst of recession, war, and the other losses we’re constantly reminded of. But joy is the point. And believe it or not, joy is possible.

How many stories can we tell about Christmas’s that weren’t the perfect Norman Rockwell holiday? Family fights. Dry Turkey. Lost presents. It always seems to be the small stuff that seems to throw things off. What if peace were possible this Christmas season?

Christmas brings us too much—too much food, too much stuff, too many parties, too many decorations! Our seasonal gorging reveals our dark side. We put our hope in what we get now. But the coming of Christ offers us a different hope—a lasting hope.