Personal Loss

Matthew 1: 18-25

18This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit. 19Because Joseph her husband was a righteous man and did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly.

Another avenue for fear is the fear of personal loss. Take Joseph for example, HE was a righteous man….he kept the faith, he was a good God fearing man, he was a respected carpenter. Much like any man of the time he was betrothed to a woman. He was working hard; making plans, just like Mary his life was perfect. Now his betrothed is pregnant, and he KNOWS he is not the father.

Joseph is thinking about leaving Mary, divorcing her. All he can see is all of the loss in front of him. Loss of respect, loss of business, loss of dreams, and loss of time. Joseph has spent much of his recent past preparing and working for his future life, saving, storing, making a name for himself…..now his soon to be wife is pregnant??? How much more could go wrong?

If we read further into the text we see: 20But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, "Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.

Notice how the angel starts off with "do not be afraid", but what is it that Joseph fears? Not the angel! He fears taking Mary! He knows that to take Mary as his own under the given circumstance, he will be taking a huge risk. A risk that might just cost him everything that he has.

Don’t we all know on some level what Joseph is feeling? Do we not see risks that arise in our lives, and we run away in fear. The easiest thing in the world to do is nothing. We fear that taking the risk might cost us something that we are not willing to give up. If we take that risk, it might not be worth it. I am sure we can all think of at least once where we have had the opportunity to trust the Lord, and his plan for us. I guarantee if you think about it, there has been some point in your life where you could have taken a leap of faith, and did not do it. You were scared of what others might think, or you knew that you might stand to lose money, time, or something that you hold dear.

I am not talking about some frivolous opportunity; I am talking about big risk, like the one that Joseph is taking. When it comes to that kind of leap you know if it is pert of God’s plan for you. You know it, because you can feel it, yet even with that reassured knowledge, we are still hesitant. Sometimes the Lord has to rip something from our hand because we have such a tight hold on it. We want to take the risk but are frozen with fear worrying about the loss. We dig in and we will not let go

I used to climb towers for a living you know the big tall red and white towers hundreds sometimes thousands of feet tall. The man I worked under told me a story about a new guy that came out to work with him. The first thing a new employee had to do was climb; if you can’t climb you can’t work. So up the tower the two go. When they got up to about 100 ft. the new guy looks around and immediately pulls his body in close to the tower, and closes his eyes. He refuses to move. He will not go down, and he cannot go up. After half an hour of trying to convince him to just go down the same way he came up, my boss called for another employee. With one man on each side, hooked in to the safety belt of the terrified man, my boss pulls out his wrench, and starts to tap……directly on the fingers of the terrified man. Each tap gets a little harder until finally the man let’s go, and they guide him down to the ground.

We do the same thing with the Lord. He is trying to show us a new way, he is opening up a path for us, all we have to do is trust in him, but we grip to the rung of the tower. We just can’t seem to let go! SO the Lord has to take evasive action sometimes. I heard this put into perspective the other day, I think it was in an e-mail someone sent me it said : 'The will of God will never take you where the Grace of God will not protect you.

We know how things worked out for Joseph, and they can work out just as well for us. We have to be prepared to take that risk, accept that loss. The Lord blesses us daily. HE wants us to be happy and give him praise. Sometime we have to be willing to open up that hand and let something go, so He can put something better in it’s place.

Peace,
Rev. Thetford