What happens when Messiah is born in you? David Jeremiah wrote in his book, When Your World Falls Apart, “the spiritual masters have told us but we have not heard, that we live in a skin-deep world where the world glorifies cloths, fashions, makeup, tummy tucks, facials, nose jobs, climbing the ladder, but that Godly character and substance are shaped in the “dark nights,”in the Gethsemanes, in the deserts -at Christmas…Show me someone who lives a carefree life with no problems or trials or dark nights of the soul and I’ll show you a shallow person.”
Charles Spurgeon wrote,
“I bear willing witness that I owe more to the fire, and the hammer, and the file, than to anything else in my Lord’s workshop. I sometimes question whether I have ever learned anything except through the rod. When my schoolroom is darkened, I see most.”
God always intends the dark nights in our lives to have a purpose! Y’sraelin bondage to Egypt, Y’sraelin captivity to Babylon, Y’sraelunder Persian and then Roman rule all had a purpose in God’s design. Miriam and Yosephbeing judged, ostracized, neurotic, uncomfortable and in pain, far from home, and alone was for a [grand] purpose. The shepherds being frightened, Rachel’s children being murdered, and the parents deposed of their babies dressed in blue all were in the profound and majestic messianic purpose of the Almighty God although a very mysterious plan. Years later when Yeshuawould be betrayed, forsaken, sold, beaten, crucified, and placed on a cross, these things also would be purposed by God for a grand, colossal theme.
Shaul’s(Paul’s) thorn in the flesh, Yochanon’sincarceration on Patmos, Kepha(Peter) being crucified upside down, John Hus opposing Catholicism then burned at the stake, all had an eternal purpose. The Holocaustfrom 1939-1945, and every disruptive moment that comes into our lives, whether a nation or an individual has HIS great purpose! God intends that the dark nights for all who have lost husbands, wives, children, parents, loved ones, or their health to be for His good (Romans 8:28)!
We celebrate HaMolad, the Nativity which initiated the Gospel or “Good News,”although it was the most sinister and dark moment in God’s and Y’srael’shistory, and in the history of the world! We will have dark nights! Just when we have everything arranged like we want it, just when all looks well, we are caught up, we have planned to retire, to spend time seeing the world, to grow old together, the disaster hits. We get bad news, a bad report, a bad word, a jolt, some unwelcome and unanticipated news and tribulation. Then, we ask, “why?”David Jeremiah when facing cancer wrote, “at that darkest and most dismal or hours, there may be no silence deeper than the silence of a hospital corridor…the nights were worse, they were long and dark and lonely.”
Jeremiah writes that enemies will always be at the gate. The devil is our enemy. The world is our enemy. Our old nature is our enemy. Age is our enemy. Disease is our enemy. Fear is our enemy. A friend can betray you. A spouse may be unfaithful. A son or daughter may desert you. A brother or sister may prove to be uncaring. A parent may disown you. We receive terrifying news. Yet, this we know. God allows trials and suffering and does so tomake us better, to strengthen us, to help us, to make us more like Him , which should be our greatest desire!
Christmas must not be a once-a-year event, a festive celebration that leaves us with anti-climatic depression. HaMolad is the promised hope for us amid a holocaust around us that YHWHshuaGod is with us, for us, and in us. Don’t let Christmas be a day or a gift in a box. Let Christmas be your reality.
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