Follow The Star

​I was driving through Burkes Gardens, Virginia yesterday. In the distance I saw an old barn and silo. I pulled over, balancing the ditch and the berm of this narrow rural road. I got out of my car and walked to and then leaned against a fence, and I just stared into the distance.

Stared until I felt this barn calling to me.

I wonder if that's what it was like when the magi saw the unusual star.

“After they had heard the king, they went on their way, and the star they had seen when it rose went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they were overjoyed.” (Matthew: 2:9-10)

I was reminded yesterday that God often uses the natural but miraculous things of this world to point us to Jesus. To point us to hope and to peace. No, a barn and a silo aren't miraculous in and of themselves, but when God uses them to stop me in my tracks in order to speak to me, to guide me, that is miraculous.

I grew up on a farm. I used to find great peace as a child climbing up into and hiding in the hay mounds of old barns, swinging on ropes from one side of them to the other, sitting in the corner of a cold and dark stall, holding and feeding a baby lamb.

I remember all of these things. They are stored within me, in stalls of their own I suppose.

God calls me to these stalls now and again. A reminder of sorts, as I am prone to too harshly judge my childhood, as I am too apt to run from it, as I am sometimes afraid of it in ways that make me at times too afraid to face the future.

Then God points me to the beauty.

That's what that star did for the Magi, no strangers to haunting stalls in their own lives.

Stars shine brightest in the darkest skies. The Star of Bethlehem symbolized the hope and light of Jesus breaking through the darkness of their lives. The star called them to that hope, like a barn and a silo in the middle of a distant field.

And they followed, much like I did.

The hope of Christmas is everywhere. The hope of Christmas is every day. If we will look for the signs.

If we will follow our stars.

The Magi didn't question the star's significance, they simply followed. It's often after we get there that God will speak the hopeful message into our hearts that he desperately wants us to hear.

The messages we desperately need to hear.

Christmas, the birth of light in the darkness of all of us. Light that looks like a star, or a barn. Light that looks like a baby in a manger.

It's easy to lose sight of our stars in a world full of distractions, full of darkness, full of alternatives that feel hopeful in the moment but prove to be destructive in the long run. This Christmas season is a perfect time to re-align our hearts and minds and souls with the star - with the barn - pointing us to the one true hope.

The hope found in Christmas.

As we walk toward Bethlehem, it's helpful to remember we aren't walking toward an event, toward a holiday, toward a one day celebration. We are walking toward hope, a hope that can soothe and guide us all the days of our lives.

If we will always follow the star.