Find Hope: Matthew 1-4Exemplo

One Step at a Time

Does it sometimes feel like you're not making ground? Life is full of challenges, and for every win comes a new set of challenges. You are winning the battle with some sins, but new temptations constantly assault you. Jesus is your treasure, but you also find your heart really longing for other things too.

Jesus' life has started in turmoil, born on a road trip, to unmarried parents, hunted by King Herod, fled to Egypt, and now finally Herod is dead, and it feels like things are beginning to move in the right direction. But instead of returning home, the angel warns Joseph to withdraw, and he moves to the region of Galilee.

Galilee is not the place to start a messianic campaign. Being from Galilee was not something to brag about; in fact, in John 7, people use the fact that Jesus grew up in Galilee as proof in their argument that he can't be the Messiah!

But this is where God had promised he would come from, and without Jesus' family understanding why or God's timing, Jesus ends up exactly where he is supposed to be. He's been to Bethlehem, Egypt, and now Nazareth, and God doesn't explain at the beginning how all these movements fit together. He just leads them one step at a time.

Sometimes when God leads us, he only gives us the next step. We want to know the next ten steps and how it will all fit together, but he calls us to trust him and take the next step.

Today, ponder this: What next step has God been calling you to take in your life that you have baulked at simply because you can't see how that step will get you where you need to go?