Christmas is in the air! Every radio station is playing the Christmas music, every store decorated, many houses lit up, Christmas cards are flowing in, toy stores are crowded, and children are excited. It is hard to dislike this time of the year. It is easily my favorite season of the year.

But the very first Christmas was anything but peaceful, serene, or celebratory. Rather, there were oppressions by the Romans, killing of innocent children, political turmoil, rebellion, and unrest. Jesus was born not in a sterile hospital room, but in a germ-infested and stinky manger. Would you ever place your newborn in a feeding trough of donkeys and sheep no matter how much it’s been cleaned?

This peasant child was to be the Messiah. Not just for Jews of that time but for all peoples everywhere for all times! How is it even fathomable that someone so lofty would be born into such humbling settings? No wonder so many of his contemporaries didn’t believe in Him! How can someone so high be born into such low surroundings, they probably thought!

Even today, if you want people’s attention, you must be successful. You must associate with those who are influential. You must be of high-born, or at least be associated with them. But that is not God’s way. God’s way is the opposite. He likes anonymity. He likes the humble. He likes the low-borns. He works from bottom-up rather than top-bottom.

I love God’s way. And if you do too, then you may never be recognized by the world. You may be seen as a “nobody.” You may be marginalized, passed over for promotion, and seen as a failure. But that’s God’s upside-down way. To Him, up is down and down is up.

Would you take comfort if you feels yourself to be a “nobody”?

“He had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.” Isa 53:2-3

PH