Was Your Christmas Cozy?
When I think of Christmas, I think of family times, togetherness, gifts, Jesus, and just good happy things. But think about it: the first Christmas was anything but that. I read an email today from someone who is serving the Lord in a less than receptive country across the ocean somewhere. And he was talking about a cozy Christmas. This year was looking good, then the school shooting in Connecticut stopped us in our tracks and we wondered where the coziness was going to be. But he brought out that the first Christmas and the first few years of Jesus' life were anything but cozy. A manger? Really, not likely a clean manger like all the nativity scenes have. Instead of a crazed youth killing people, it was a crazed king killing babies. And yet why do we think it was cozy? Because God was in control. Think of that popular picture of the bird in the nest safe and secure while the wind and storm and lightning rage all around. ...