Shut Out, Not Shut Down

When circumstances turn against you, no matter how good or noble your life or your cause happens to be, there's a great temptation, isn't there, to shut down; to walk away from the good that you're doing; to curl up in a ball and shut the world out?

I don't think any of us likes facing adversity. In fact, I'm sure of it. I certainly don't. And yet, it's a fact of life. The worst kind, I think, is when we feel that the world's rejected us; when the people closest to us have rejected us. You feel like a child that's been abandoned, and that sense of abandonment is just awful.

If you've been able to join me through Fresh this past week or so, you'll know that we've been chatting about the terrible adversity that surrounded that event two thousand plus years ago that we now refer to as "Christmas". Here's a verse that I'd like to circle back to, to look at it a second time from a different angle:

Luke 2:6-7 While Joseph and Mary were in Bethlehem, the time came for her to have the baby. She gave birth to her first son. She wrapped him up well and laid him in a box where cattle are fed. She put him there because the guest room was full.

Jesus. Rejected by the world on day one! There was no room, but the mission didn't stop because it was all part of God's plan that it should happen that way.

Look, rejection doesn't mean abandonment. When doors close, God's still in this, He still has a way forward – even if it's in the most humble of circumstances, in the most uncomfortable and difficult places. God has a plan.

That's His Word. Fresh … for you … today.