Reflection
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I’ve lived in big cities (or at least the suburbs) for all my adult life. However, I’d never lived in a town of more than 8,000 people until I was out of college, so small towns will always have a place in my heart. I still love going back home.
Yet growing up in small towns, you can get the feeling that a lot of the action in the world is happening in the BIG cities: the progress, the buildings, the famous people, the news. In some ways, small towns kind of keep to themselves. The people there have their own news, their own people.
But every once in a while, something happens in a small town that makes national news. Something extraordinary happens that puts that usually quiet little place on the map. And when that happens, assuming it’s something good, people in the town smile. There’s a sense of pride that lifts everyone’s spirits.
In the song “O Little Town of Bethlehem,” this little town is about to have something happen to it.
Yet in thy dark streets shineth, the everlasting light
The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight
Even today, more than 2,000 years later, the little town of Bethlehem is talked about and visited by people from all over the world—all because something happened there… something nobody expected. The person who came to show the whole world what God was like—God in the flesh—was born there. God used that little town of Bethlehem to introduce Jesus to the world.
Prayer
Heavenly Father, thank you for taking people and places that might seem insignificant to everyone else and using them in such great ways. Thank you for the reminder that your ways are definitely not our ways. They are so much better. Amen.
