Finding Purpose in Your Stable

Have you ever felt like all your dreams for your life just didn’t turn out anything like you thought they would? Maybe it just feels like your life got hijacked somewhere between the dreams you had for your life and the reality of where you are now? 

If your answer is yes to the above, let me encourage you by telling you that you aren’t the only one.  I’m not the only one either. The Bible is full of people just like us.  People that were busy dreaming and planning for all the ordinary everyday stuff when God out of nowhere interjected them onto a pathway of the unimaginable and unexpected. People just like Joseph in Mathew 1:18-21 (CSB) that reads,

“The birth of Jesus Christ came about this way: After his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, it was discovered before they came together that she was pregnant from the Holy Spirit. So her husband. Joseph, being a righteous man, and not wanting to disgrace her publicly, decided to divorce her secretly. But after he had considered these things, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, [Joseph, son of David, don’t be afraid to take Mary as your wife, because what has been conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth a son, and you are to name him Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.]”

Notice God described Joseph as a righteous man. A good man. You see God knew Joseph.  He knew how he thought, what was important to him and even what made him tick. He had a personality and heart for doing what was right. God knew Joseph could be trusted with the assignment He had planned for him.

According to the Jewish culture of the day,  righteous would have meant that Joseph probably paid his taxes every year and offered his sacrifices in the temple.  He has been taught like other Jewish men to obey the law. He had been taught to love God and so he did enough to keep his commandments willingly. He had made his plans like most other Jewish men to settle down, marry and have a family. So we read he became engaged and began the betrothal period to Mary. Joseph had made all these good plans for his life and he was well on his way to accomplishing those plans. But there is a lot more to Joseph’s story. God never lets him just settle for ordinary. No, not Joseph. Not you and me either. 

Under Jewish culture there were three phases to a Jewish wedding. There was the selection process where most often the father of the groom selected the bride for his son. Then he enters the waiting or betrothal stage where he works to build him and his bride a home. This usually takes about a year. During this part of the wedding process, the bride and groom are considered married but do not live together or come together as man and wife. It is during this engagement period that the groom is busy at work to prepare a place for them to live. Then the final process is the wedding ceremony when everything is finalized.  Then they formally begin living together as husband and wife. 

Even though his earthly father may have selected Mary to be Joseph’s bride,  it was God himself who was leading this predictable law abiding man to Mary.  After all not any man would do to be the earthly father to God’s own son. Only one person could fill the responsibility of these special shoes.  God has set his eyes on Joseph for this very special assignment. 

Long before the angel appeared to Mary about the birth of Christ and appeared to Joseph in a dream to set in motion God’s great plan to send his son into the world, God had chosen this good man named Joseph to be her husband. The one who just had plans to live an ordinary everyday life God chose for a very special and anything but ordinary purpose. Because God not only sees who we are but who we can be. 

Most men would not have allowed his plans to have been disrupted. But Joseph did. Most men would have called off their engagement. But Joseph didn’t.  Most men would not have chose to believe the unbelievable news that Mary was expecting a child but had never been with a man. But Joseph believed.  Most men wouldn’t have traveled miles to watch his wife give birth in the cold night in a stable that wasn’t his child. But most men weren’t Joseph. 

Joseph did allow his own plans to be disrupted because God had asked him to.  Joseph didn’t call off the engagement to Mary because God asked him to.  Joseph did believe the unbelievable news of a virgin giving birth to the son of God because God told him to believe. Joseph traveled miles leading Mary’s donkey, giving her companionship on that road of the unknown and protecting her on her journey because God had asked him to and it was what a good man would do. Joseph sat by her side in a stable staying with her through all the pain of child birth because God asked him to. Joseph became a father to a son who wasn’t his simply because God had asked him to. 

We all have a purpose. A special job or calling that God has asked us or will ask us to do. Sometimes it won’t make sense. Sometimes we will wrestle with God’s plans and try to figure our own way out of it all just like Joseph did. Sometimes God will bring his purpose right down into the middle of our ordinary lives disrupting every detail of what we had planned for ourselves turning it all upside down. 

It will mean believing God even when it makes no sense at all. It will mean believing  God has the best plan for your life even when those plans don’t look anything like the ones you picked out for yourself. For some it will even mean traveling miles out of your way not understanding exactly what your journey is about and residing in some places that feel cold and less than what we could have imagined or dreamed you would go. 

Most of the time we aren’t going to be called to do the big things.  We will do our greatest work in the small every day things. In the family things.  God’s plans won’t lead us to the beautiful Inns in life like they do “her” but instead Gods plans will lead “you” to the stable. Those messy places where we will have to get our hands dirty.  They won’t be places where we lead with our pretty nails and high heels but will put on our work boots and gloves. They may be less than pleasurable and may even be a little smelly. God didn’t do his greatest work in the Inn but in a stable. A stable surrounded by hay, dirt and smelly animals.

Right in the middle of the unexpected, less than favorable, unpleasant and in the dark of the night, God brought the most incredible gift into the world. And there in the midst of it all was the ordinary but good man named Joseph who had his whole life mapped out.  There he found himself front row center to seeing salvation brought into the world. And God had chosen him to be there and have a part to play in the story. 

What if Joseph had put Mary away and called off that engagement? He would have missed some of the messy and unpleasant but he would have missed out on being a part of the greatest story ever told.  

So what has God purposed to usher in through your life? What is that calling you are so wrestling with?  The one that you maybe are trying to figure a way out of and want to put aside. The one that you may think is a little too messy and uncomfortable.

Maybe it is taking care of someone sick or helping someone through a messy situation when you would much rather not get involved. Maybe God is asking you to pick up and move somewhere the opposite of where you want to be.  Maybe God is asking you to lay aside that pretty Inn place to serve and settle for the “stable” job. Maybe you are in that job now and don’t feel like you are seen at all and just don’t understand why. 

And maybe God isn’t calling you to be the one to lead but to be there to encourage and protect someone else in their calling. Who will God use you to help bring about His great plans for a better world? 

God’s ways are so above ours. We may not be able to fully understand them completely this side of heaven but this one thing we can always be sure of.  His ways are always to do us good.  You and her.  And no matter what purpose he is preparing us for and working out through us we can be assured we will be blessed to have been favored to play our chosen part in them. 

So as we celebrate Christmas this year and make our plans for the New Year embrace your purpose and callings He sends your way. Lay your hesitations aside and surrender your plans for his. Sometimes we will be the person God uses to support someone else. Other times God will bring other people into our lives to encourage and support us. Be open for both opportunities. Both jobs are equally important. 

Sometimes we will be the one in the spotlight, other times thrust front row center and other time we will simply be called just to take up the back row never to be seen at all. 

After the birth of Christ, we only see Joseph mentioned a few more times in the story of Jesus and Mary. He came on the scene in quietness and then quietly he was gone. Sometimes God’s purposes for our lives will come and go just like that. We can get so discouraged in the messy we forget that sometimes our jobs are only temporary positions. One day we will find ourselves right in the middle of the stable and then the next day as fast as you were thrust into that unexpected assignment it will just as unexpectedly end. 

So don’t be afraid to dream and plan. Dream the big dreams. Set your sights on those big tall mountains and strap on those boots and get ready to climb. But don’t be disappointed when God hijacks your plans for his. 

Don’t be surprised that the mountain you have your heart so set on climbing God  instead gives you the sky and wings to fly.  And you might just be surprised that along that same journey he also molds and shapes you into that person you never dreamed you could be. 

See you in the Field,

Susan