Time- Lk 2_1-7

     A discouraged Christopher Columbus stopped by a monastery for a drink of water.  He sat with an old monk and told of his desire to go on an expedition to discover another land.  That monk was a personal friend of Queen Isabella, and he encouraged her to finance Columbus’ expedition. 

     George Whitfield was a bartender in England who couldn’t get along with the bar’s owner, his sister-in-law, so he quit.  Out of that experience, he turned to God, went to Oxford and met a man named John Wesley.  Together, the two of them helped transform England. 

     Joseph and Mary were forced to make a ninety mile journey in Mary’s last month of pregnancy.  God redeemed that difficult situation so that it fulfilled the words spoken by His prophets hundreds of years earlier.

     God is in the redemption business.  He not only sent His Son to redeem you from sin and death, He redeems every moment you live, if you allow Him.  Instead of blaming God, you should be looking for how God is at work.  You may not see it, or recognize it at the time, but know and trust that God is in the midst of it.

     Like Joseph and Mary, are you in a place that just doesn’t seem to make sense?  Do you find yourself asking, “Why is this happening to me?”  You’re not alone.

     If God can use a drink of water to change the course of a man’s life, the loss of a job to transform a nation and a ninety mile trek across the desert to fulfill scripture and transform the world, just imagine what He can do with those difficulties or inconveniences in YOUR life.