It’s storming here.  I love a good storm.  The house is quiet, everyone is long since sleeping, and the only sound is that of the rain outside my window.

Weather is fascinating, isn’t it?  Fog.  Who could ever have thought of the idea of fog.  And then there’s the science that makes it possible!

God’s creativity is one of my favorite of His traits.  Rain and flowers and bugs and the human body.  How did He come up with it all.

His creativity inspires awe and wonder.

Nowhere do I see greater creativity and wonder than in the plan that He devised to save mankind from themselves.  He sent a baby to be born in a cave.  He revealed this truth to outcast loners on a hill in the middle of the night.  He got the attention of the wise of the world by altering the stars.  And time after time He used the lowliest of mankind to bring about His masterful plan.  If I had all of eternity to concoct a grander, more obscure and beautiful plan, it would never have formulated quite like that.

Life is so rarely follows out script.

I feel fairly certain that neither Mary nor Joseph anticipated lives like the ones that God would call them to lead.  I’d venture that very few people ever believed what Mary knew to be true.  Most likely thought her quite pompous in her silly claims to try to exonerate herself.  Joseph’s friends surely did not understand and probably called him the fool for falling for Mary’s ludicrous lies.  But it was enough for them that God had called them to this life.  They needed no one else’s approval, respect, or understanding.

God intervened and their plans got wrecked.

And look at how beautifully it turned out.

When our plans go south, when things don’t go as intended, that’s when you need to get out your binoculars because something wonderful may be on the horizon. So often we hold our heads down in dismay when life goes off cue and we don’t have our eyes toward heaven, ready to see what the Lord has in store.  And we just miss it.  Wonder went before us and we had our heads hung in dismay and we missed it.

Shepherds came with wild stories of angels and glory!  Outcast men who didn’t mingle among the people sought out a young girl in a place not meant to house humans at all.  There had been not one angel, but a host of them.  They told of the greatness of this night, the birth of this King, the wonder of this coming.

Mary knew that life had gone off script, but she trusted that her Maker had a better course in mind.  And with a heart of wonder and a soul of love, faith, and trust, she watched her own life unfold with a spirit of splendor, awe, and amazement.  Who could dream this up?  Who could make up such a tale of love and beauty, of sacrifice and wonder, of seeming lows and eternal highs?  Who could inspire such wonder as this?

My God could.

And every day My God spins lives of greatness.  He weaves tales of love and beauty, of sacrifice and wonder.  Every day, in a million ways, my God makes wondrous the lowly.