And when God chose to become flesh and dwell among us, the angel wisely prefaces his glorious announcement, “You have found favour with God,” with “Do not be afraid.”

You, a “virgin,” will bear a child. Do not be afraid.

Oh, the looming scandal, what would people say?

Many might have politely rejected this “blessing,” but Mary did not baulk. She accepted the potential disgrace, the disapproval, the whispers. “I am the doulos, the servant of the Lord. Be it done to me, according to your word.”

I will not be afraid.

* * *

Potential scandal and disgrace: the price Joseph paid to live with God.

Mary, engaged, “showed.”

Joseph wanted to quietly break up, but the angel challenges him, “Do not afraid.” (Matt. 1:20).

“Your wife’s baby will come too early. She will be gossiped about. You will be gossiped about. But ‘he will save his people from their sins,’” (Matt: 1:22).

Do not be afraid.

* * *

Oh, wouldn’t we love to be grabbed by God, filled with his Spirit, to live seeing the whole earth and our whole lives filled with his glory?

To live seeing God with the eyes of faith, his joy bubbling up in our hearts.

To live in his presence, hearing his voice and brilliant guidance.

To live in the continual feast, which is worship.

* * *

Ah, guess what?  Our path into experiencing the glory and joy and presence and power of God will not differ from Mary, or Joseph or Moses (Ex 14:13) or Jeremiah (Jer 1:18).

It will come with a cost. There will be a price. And the same imperative: Do not be afraid.

* * *

“Woe to you when all men speak well of you,” Jesus says (Luke 6:26). Woe to the impressive, to you who dazzle, who have it all, do it all, are the cleverest, thinnest, richest, the best-organized, best housekeeper, best cook, highest-achiever, if what you have sacrificed for all this glory is anonymous, unrecognized, unpraised, soul-blessing, joy-giving, time-consuming communion with Him who chose the dirt and mess and downward mobility of the stable floor.

* * *

Christian, if your current life isn’t giving you joy and peace and the soul-filling presence of God, you must do things differently. You must live differently. You must make room for Him.

Do not be afraid.

When Christ, the King on the white horse, whose name is faithful and true, comes to us, as he did to Mary, prepare to be shaken up.

We may ask his help to be a little thinner, a littler richer, a bit more successful, a bit more organized, for help to get our kids as shiny as other people’s Christmas-letter kids.

To get our house and garden and car and wardrobe and grooming enviable and irreproachable so all men speak well of us.

* * *

But, odds are, he has a different agenda. These things aren’t really giving us joy, are they?

“Woe to you when all men praise you,” (Luke 6:26), Jesus said. He may help us get our acts together so all men praise us. He may not. What’s important is following where he leads, step by step.

Do not be afraid.

God, I suspect, is totally unimpressed by the American Dream permeating the world—“prosperity, success and upward social mobility achieved through hard work.”

Why? Because he can give, at the snap of his fingers, all these things the pagans run after (Matthew 6: 32-33).

* * *

 God’s dream for us is different. It does not involve the things we earn or achieve through spirit-numbing, joy-crushing, body-wearying, heart-atrophying hard work, but the things He wants to freely give.

Complete Joy (John 15:11)

Peace that the world cannot give (John 14:27)

Rest (Matthew 11: 28)

Our souls filled with a fountain of living waters. (John 4:13)

Light (John 8:12).

* * *

 Christ will never agree to be an Add-On, a Plug-In to help make a life foolishly overloaded to collapsing work a little bit better, so that we can squeeze in even more.

C. S. Lewis writes: “Christ says ‘Give me all of you! I don’t want so much of your time, so much of your talents and money, and so much of your work. I want you! All of you!

I have not come to torment or frustrate the natural man or woman, but to kill it!

 No half measures will do.

I don’t want to only prune a branch here and a branch there; rather I want the whole tree out!

 Hand it over to me, the whole outfit, all of your desires, all of your wants and wishes and dreams.

Turn them all over to me, give yourself to me and I will make of you a new self—in my image.

Give me yourself and in exchange I will give you Myself. My will, shall become your will. My heart, shall become your heart.” 

* * *

 This year, in baby steps, let’s labour for the food which endures to eternal life (John 6:27).

Let Christ be our pace-setter, and let us march to his drumbeats, no faster.

For only the champagne of his joy can fill our soul. The things of this world—we’ve tried them: there is no peace, no joy, no rest in them.

And perhaps we will be a little bit fatter, and our houses a little bit scruffier, and our gardens less perfect and we will not buy the new car, furniture, kitchen and clothes (or consume our life with shopping and earning and paying for them) and our kids will be put into fewer frazzling extra-curricular activities that they will—guaranteed!!—eventually drop. If we don’t drop before they do!

God willing, we will slow down the pace of our treadmill, one by one dropping the activities and time-and-life-sucking trivial imposed “duties” we most despise.

We will become ourselves, as star differs from star in splendour (1 Cor: 15:41).

We will slow down; we will not conform; we will dare to be different; we will slowly exchange the crazy of our lives for the King.

Do not be afraid. Revise your life until is as slow, holy, star-filled, peaceful and dreamy as your soul desires.

Do not be afraid. Why not be totally changed into fire?