Life isn't perfect and that's the kind of world where Jesus showed up. He wasn't born in a palace on a perfect day. He was born in the middle of the night during tax season to an unwed couple in a stable or a cave in a sheep field. That was God's way of showing us that nothing is perfect. Life is chaotic. It's messy. That's what Jesus was stepping into.

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God's purposes and plans will not fail. Before you spend all your prayer time telling Him about yours, ask about His.

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God is using your present circumstances to make you more useful for later roles in His unfolding story.

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Don't overcomplicate God's will. Just stay connected to Jesus. Love Him. Look into His eyes. He will lead. Follow. Repeat.

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We go from Malachi to Matthew in one page of our scriptures, but that one piece of paper that separates the Old Testament from the New Testament represents 400 years of history - 400 years where there wasn't a prophet, 400 years where God's voice wasn't heard. And that silence was broken with the cry of a baby on Christmas night.

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There's no doubt we were unworthy, but we were never worthless. Big difference.

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Don't dwell on your insufficiency, but dwell on God's all-sufficiency.

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Simply by our proximity to Jesus, we can bring hope and life to people and places trapped in discouragement and despair.

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To us, waiting is wasting. To God waiting is working.

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People say all the time 'I don't have a good testimony' because they think their story has to involve some dramatic story of change from 'bad' to 'good'. But Jesus didn't come to save people this way. Sin doesn't make us bad it makes us dead. Jesus came to save by bringing the dead to life. And that's an amazing testimony.

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