Wanderer

“Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift!”

I love to save Christmas cards that depict the birth of Jesus. Each year, I allow myself time to look at the cards from Christmas’ past, remembering the senders, re-reading their handwritten messages, but often just looking at their signatures below the printed text.

In 2002, I sent out an unusual Christmas card. I say unusual because instead of the usual manger scene, this one portrayed an older baby Jesus just learning to walk. On the front, a beautiful reproduced painting by Morgan Weistling showed a loving Joseph holding steady the gripping fingers of his toddler, Jesus, learning to walk among the wood chips and tools of the carpenter’s trade. On the inside it read “… the infant Jesus learned to walk among us so that we might learn to walk with God.”

Such a powerful reminder of our great and awesome God! He came into our lives as a baby, nursing and crying, needing to be held and comforted, fed and nurtured. He had to learn how to walk, how to talk, how to read Hebrew Scripture, and how to make tables, doors, and chairs. He surely fell a few times when he first began to walk, scraping his little-boy knees, and probably banged his teen-aged thumb a few times while learning the work of his earthly father. He knew what it was to be human, yet he also knew there was more to his life on earth than being a man. That little baby grew up and accepted a mission that none of us would be willing to enter into.

As we wait upon the coming of the Lord this Advent season, let us remember that we are like toddlers in a world that is strewn with blades, mallets, nails, and slivers of wood. Let us not forget that the hands of our Father guide us through right paths and hold us steady every step of the way.

Morgan Weistling’s Walking with God and Kissing the Face of God

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