Suddenly!

Luke 2:13

And SUDDENLY their appeared with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among the men with whom He is pleased.”

It was just an ordinary kind of a day in the middle-east, people going back and forth doing what they do. Some gathering water, some washing clothes or cooking, some off to hunt and gather food for dinner, or sell something at the center of town so they could buy food. I have had those ordinary days, I am sure you have as well. We wake up to an alarm, go put on the coffee, have a devotional time, then a shower. I make a list of some goals I have to accomplish that day and make sure it is do-able. I think about what to have for dinner, check with hubby for his plan, and then I’m off to the race, after breakfast, of course.

If this remotely sounds like your day, we may just want to give our routine some thought. It appears that God likes to use those ‘sudden’ changes in our days to get our attention. I had a couple of ‘sudden-lies’ that stopped me in my tracks, literally! When I was ‘suddenly’ pushed down by an 80 pound labrador retriever, I was suddenly incapacitated by a broken femur. When my husband was ‘suddenly’ hit from the rear when he stopped for an accident on the freeway, he was also incapacitated, not knowing what was broken!

There are happy sudden-lies at times. A surprise proposal of marriage from a boyfriend, a ‘positive’ on a pregnancy test, or a ‘you have been accepted’ by my publisher.

While they are all amazing and life changing events, none of those ‘sudden-lies’ compare to the suddenly the shepherds received out in the field! Luke 2:9 “And an angel of the Lord SUDDENLY stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them; and they were terribly frightened.” Nothing like that had ever happened to anybody-ever! No family member passed down the story of a host of angels coming to talk to them! It was not written anywhere in any history book, or even verbal history-till now. This was a ‘no one on this earth has ever seen anything like this before’ suddenly! Then it was accentuated by tons of heavenly hosts joining in to say; ‘Glory to God in the Highest.’

If we are still here when Christ returns for us, to gather us home, that will be a suddenly no one has ever seen before! Just imagine, we are working on our ‘list’. Maybe doing laundry, maybe teaching school or even cooking dinner, or teaching a Bible study, when SUDDENLY the sky bursts open and we see the feet of Jesus enter our atmosphere! Our most outrageous imagination cannot comprehend the magnitude of that one event!

While it is very exciting to imagine, it is even more exciting to know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that we are ready to go! Our sins are forgiven, Jesus is Captain of our soul, and we are just waiting to go to our eternal home.

That can happen almost as quickly as a suddenly. If you have not asked Jesus into your life before, it’s easy. First, recognize Him as Lord and Savior. Recognize yourself as the sinner who cannot save himself from sin. Then just ask Jesus to forgive your sins and come into your heart. You have ‘suddenly’ become a new creation in Him!

Question; Have you made this confession of faith? I would enjoy hearing about it. The Bible tells us to confess that we call Jesus our Lord to everyone! I’m only one! hugs,d