My daughter has played Mary (as in mother of Jesus) on three separate occasions. Each time she's either dropped the baby, fumbled the baby or in the latest go round, decapitated the baby. Although, this third time, she had help. While waiting for her cue to walk up to the alter and take her place in front of the manger, she and another player found small swords. They decided to duel. With one swipe, down went baby Jesus's head.
When I asked her what specifically she had against Jesus, she replied "I don't know. It's just every time He's around, stuff happens." Ain't it the truth? While she didn't understand the laughter going on around her, we sure did. Whenever Jesus was around, things did happen. Usually it was to others but things happened. Lame people walked, blind people saw, life was restored. Through all this, faith was established. A new faith. A real faith. People were never the same. Something that rarely is talked about is how Jesus stayed above it all. While his love for humanity caused him to step outside his comfort zone, He didn't change. He didn't succumb to that "look at me, I am great!" mentality. He just kept going out and and doing, with nary a thought to what others thought of him. He just went and did. How many of us can claim the same thing? Doing a good deed is all fine but being seen doing a good deed is even better. I don't know anyone, including myself, who hasn't succumbed to that "hey look what I just did!" moment. Rare is the person who just does and does with no thought to how he's being looked upon by others. I think most of us struggle with it. Yet doesn't Jesus request us to "go and do ye likewise."? If we are supposed to live our lives using Him as our model, then we must need to strive to take ourselves out of the picture. To let God move the universe by doing His will through us. No easy task, this. We aren't alone however. God has promised us to be with us always. We do have someone watching our good deeds. Therefore we no longer have a need for an audience, we've already got one. And He is cheering us on, all the time, even when we fail, even when people laugh at us or ridicule us or mock us. He is there, holding us up. Even when no one else sees, He does.
Encourage someone today. We all expect to see animosity, stupid human tricks, weird human behavior. Actively go search and find each day, someone who is doing something good. Holding a door, smiling, listening, let someone go first. When we purposefully search this out, our opinion of humanity will slowly start to change and we just might find it easier to do what God requires of us as well. We could very well see that the world isn't the totally messed up place we think it is. We might feel led to do something ourselves, outside our comfort zone. We might end up living the life that Jesus wanted us to. Yeah, us!
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