A Hole for Christmas | Kyle McMurray Coaching, LLC

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I remember as a kid, we had this wooden box thing that would sit on our cedar chest in front of our big picture window, and mom had these little ceramic figures that went in it. And this was serious stuff, they HAD to be in their places and NO, I could not touch it. Like everyone had their specific place that they went. And then, at the top of this little wooden barn looking thing was a hole. And that’s where this light bulb fit perfectly snug inside. You’re listening to Living the Freedom Life, this is episode 127 and today we are talking about A Hole.

Just imagine, for someone to say that you are an introvert would be an understatement. Okay, a recluse…to yourself. You spend days, even weeks out in the middle of nowhere with your sheep. Making sure that they have enough water (which is a little scarce) and finding grass to feed on is a little bit of a challenge.

Well, those reclusive, beduin shepherds so long ago were alone doing their rituals, checking on the boundaries, gathering the sheep close and counting their numbers to make sure every last one was accounted for.…these unsuspecting loners were the first to be interrupted and they weren’t looking for surprises. I don’t know if you’ve been around any sheep before but surprises spook sheep and that’s not a good thing.

But….the distant dazzling brightness could not be ignored. And, the accompanying announcement without a face, well, that was breathtaking too; it seemed to have punched a hole in the sky with the announcement, “The baby Messiah has come.”

The baby Messiah has come

They would deal with the sheep later… they had to go…. now!

It wasn’t a streamed event, or a Facetime event to watch later, or even a podcast you could rewind. No, this was real-time, you had to be there. God was interrupting human history and the shepherds wanted to see…God wanted them to see.

They weren’t “distracted” by their daily tasks or what was the provision and livelihood of their families. Have you ever tried to shepherd sheep? It’s busy work. More than you think…and easy to get bogged down in the tasks that need to be done.

You see, most of us today would not let some big star or comet, or… some sign from The Creator of all these things. No. We don’t have time to get distracted, much too busy. I have lists you know… to help keep me organized. We take pride in how busy we are. It’s the Holiday Season. Ain’t nobody got time for that.

We have it backwards. Completely backwards.

While we are asking for a sign from the Lord, we are much too busy for what WE see as the distraction of God trying to get our attention. We see the distraction as the star. From God’s perspective, the distraction is all the stuff in everyday life that has us fooled into believing those are the important things that need our attention.

On that night centuries ago, God opened celestial windows, and for a brief moment ordinary shepherds could glimpse at an extraordinary vision of heaven itself.

Why the shepherds? Why not the religious leaders, the Sanhedrin, the politicians, the prominent people, the powerful people? Didn’t they see it?

…the shepherds lived in the margins, they weren’t considered the cool kids, or advertising on Amazon and Google!

Maybe the others were too preoccupied with themselves, too scheduled, too hard-pressed arranging their own details, too busy being important or being offended to look up to God?

Or, maybe they weren’t looking for God at all. I mean, Remember, this was a time where God had been silent for quite some time, like 400 years. If this star were to appear today, the last time God spoke would be in the 1600’s. That’s a long time. We just learned about Gravity in the 1600’s. That’s to give you a perspective on how long it had been since God had spoken to them.

This happened between the Old Testament and what was to come. The silence had probably calloused some into believing that our everyday responsibilities were King.

They weren’t expecting the unpredictable, They weren’t looking at what was foretold with current eyes. They didn’t expect The Almighty, the God of Abraham to choose today, to interrupt space and time with a hole in the sky; and for sure, they definitely weren’t looking for a baby.

Jesus traded the joys of heaven and the power of the Creator to become the created. He gave up everything for the inexperienced arms of a rookie mother, in an ordinary town that nothing good came from, in a forgotten corner of the world.

I know, it probably didn’t happen on December 25th, it more than likely happened sometime in what we now know as March.

Whenever it was, Light invaded darkness…and everything changed… for everyone, then and even for us.

Don’t miss it. Stop where you are, focus beyond yourself, expect interruptions, and listen for God’s voice in them…oh, and look up.

He is still punching holes in the sky…

Living the Freedom Life, this is Kyle