SO YOU KNOW
MERRY CHRISTMAS DEAR GIST PARTNER!!!!!
How e dey be for your side?
Right off the bat, let me say this: if you are here and you have not received Jesus into your heart, then this Christmas matter no concern you oo. But e fit concern you, you can receive Jesus into your heart: simply come to Him in sincerity, confess your sins to Him, tell Him that you believe in Him and in His power to save you, ask Him into your heart and pledge to live life going forward with Him fully involved and according to His terms. It is when you have received Jesus into your heart that the subject of Christmas begins to apply to you.
That being said, welcome to today’s gist.
Yesterday, I heard the song ‘Mary did you know?’ And it got me thinking about that first Christmas all those years ago. Two things came to mind and I’ll try my best to share comprehensive thoughts on them.
You know it’s easy to gloss over Scripture or make people in the Bible out to be super human.
But….
Imagine Mary all those years ago: a young pious woman who had disciplined herself to live right and, beyond outward appearances, committed her heart to God, engaged to be married. Then, by the hand of God, she finds herself with a child, as in she carry belle😳. How you want take talk this one? Who want hear? Certainly not the man who had been keeping himself for marriage and hoping to marry a woman who had been doing the same thing. What of her mother? The woman who had tried her best to raise her daughter in a manner that honoured Yah, where she want put face now?
But something ‘strange’ happened.
After initially deciding to put her away, Joseph comes back and decides to marry Mary in her pregnant condition.
“Nothing wey e want tell us, na him give her belle!” The people must have stated their opinions very clearly and loudly, judging Mary and Joseph for daring to eat the forbidden fruit outside the confines of marriage. Days turned to weeks, weeks to months and Mary conditioned continued to progress.
Have you ever imagined the stigma that Mary and Joseph had to deal with? The scorn from people who should ordinarily be praising them for their decision to obey God. Tongues must have wagged and kept on wagging. But in the midst of this, Mary must have kept quiet and declined defending herself, not because she didn’t know what to say or because she was guilty but because she knew the truth, she knew the mission she was on and Who sent her on that mission. Mary probably remains one of the people who deserved to be defended, by herself and others too, because she undertook one of the most crucial assignments in history –birthing and nurturing the Saviour of the world.
Yet she kept silent.
I can imagine that the tongues didn’t stop wagging when she gave birth to Jesus, they may have even increased.
You know the song asks “Mary, did you know?” The truth is that she did know. She had been given instructions by God through His angel, she had received confirmation from Simeon and Anna so she was not in doubt as to the child she bore. Yet she had to keep quiet in the face of accusations and unwarranted judgment.
As I pondered on this, I asked myself: “If na me be Mary, I for keep quiet?” The truth is that there would always be times when you will face scorn and derision for choosing to obey God and do the assignment He sends you on. People will not always understand why you are doing certain things certain ways; it will seem incomprehensible and/or foolhardy to people, yourself included sometimes, that you are doing certain things and they will give you grief over them. But you, you know say na God send you ooo. How do you begin to explain it to them? How can you explain the workings of God in such situations? The truth is that you may not be able to do that and, say this with me, that is fine. Your job is to obey God, not to explain to others why you are obeying God. Like Mary, you may have to deal with unfair criticism but, like she did, you too can decide that obeying God is better than proving a point, so you keep quiet.
I imagine how it would have been when those ‘judges’ and ‘opinion staters’ stood before the judgment throne and found out that Mary was in the right all along! E go first blur😂.
But Heaven seems too long a time to wait for vindication, and there is the temptation to do the defending by ourselves; but let me stop you there dear gist partner. You see, you cannot defend yourself more than God can, and if He hasn’t attended to a matter, then maybe it isn’t yet time –just trust His process and timing and continue in faithful obedience to what He has called you to. No matter how they push you, persecute you, insult you, revile you, just continue to obey God and walk with Him, when the time which He has set to vindicate you comes, He will do that. Till that time comes, just continue to obey.
And the second thing I thought about; the song ends with the line “this sleeping child you’re holding is The Great I Am.”
Imagine Oyigiyigi deciding to squeeze Himself into frail human form, to suffer the indignities of a human existence. And you know why He did it?
For you!
Every indignity Jesus faced, every jab thrown at Him, every time He was driven out of a place, when He felt hungry, when He felt tired, when He decided to go to the cross… He did it all for you!! Never forget that. So how do we show appreciation to this God who gave up everything for us but to decide that nothing else should be big enough to stand to-to-toe with Jesus’ place in your life.
So, as we remember that day all those years ago that heralded the redemption of the world, let our hearts we turned towards obedience to God, at all costs!!
TUNES AND THOUGHTS: of course our song recommendation is ‘Mary did you know?’ And of course, she knew! Despite the fact that this song is usually sung at Christmas, this song is one that is for all seasons, it is a reminder that you can trust the small thing which you now see will become what God has told you it will be. As you listen, may your heart be drawn towards obedience to God at all cost.
Audiomack: https://audiomack.com/don-moen/song/mary-did-you-know?share-user-id=140072136
YouTube Music: https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=AQH8JxAGoeU&si=fcntwBQykdnn3m_P
This is my family’s first Christmas without my father. Last year, he was here with us and doing so well that no one imagined that he would be gone a scant three months from then. To be very honest, God really helped us as a family, He helped us today. I miss my dad so much!!! But I trust that God will help us. Please keep us, and all who are grieving, in your prayers.
Well that is that about that as far as that is concerned, see you next week!
Love,
Achenyo.
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