Week 3: Day 2

Scripture: Luke 2:6-7; James 4:1-10

The digs were humble at best. A "no vacancy" sign and a barn and a feeding trough. He came in to a world that thought it had no room for him. He came, not in a palace as a king, but in a manger as hayseed He was born in a stable to parents who were so uninfluential that they could not convince their way into a real hotel room.

The king of the universe, the maker of the stars, the One by and through whom all things have their being, took his first breath in a humility that no one saw coming. A humility that, to be honest, is unsettling and difficult to acknowledge, because we are not quite sure what to do with it.

Tim Keller says,

"The problem is that it takes great humility to understand humility." The king in a manger is bigger than we want to admit. Born in a manger and killed on a tree, this man would take his first breath and his last breath and all of the ones in between in a humility that we can hardly begin to understand.

The stable is the place to dig deeply into this humility. In our confusion and inability to understand, James says he gives more grace.

The humble one gives us more grace than we could ever need to tread the waters of what feels unattainable. He gives us the grace to look around: at our lives and our homes and under our trees. He gives us the grace to deal with what we will find as we put on the lenses of humility. And, as we dive into the stable, he will draw nearer to us.

Prayer:

Lord Jesus, teach me to be generous. Teach me to serve you as you deserve, To give and not to count the cost, To fight and not to heed the wounds, To toil and not to seek for rest, To labor and not to seek reward, Except that of knowing that I do your will. Amen.

-St. Ignatius of Loyola