Test of Greatness: Second Friday of Advent

[The great French writer] Montaigne became kittenish with his kitten but [it] never talked philosophy to him. Everywhere the great enters the little - its power to do so is almost the test of its greatness.
~ C.S. Lewis, Miracles, p147

The story of Christmas is about a lot of things, but one of them is about how "the God of the Universe, He became one of us...." The great and mighty YHWH of Israel, their Creator and King, entered our world through a peasant girls womb.

Christmas is about how true greatness pays attention to the small ones of the world. Not just "pay attention" in a dismissive or patronizing way, but "pay attention" in the sacrificial  and loyal sort of way.

You have great power in your life, the ability to influence and affect others. Through your actions you can shape how well the day goes for someone in your home or at work. You may not think much about the consequences of your attitude or actions, but there is great power there.

Just because you ignore it or fail to pay adequate attention to it doesn't mean that you have no power over others. You have great power over others, and the Christmas story reveals to us how we ought to use that power.

The test of your greatness comes in how you treat people that rely on you, who need you, who look up to you. Do you take them for granted? Do you give them little thought? Do you consider their needs only after taking care of yourself? Do you value them? Are they better off because of you?

Does your attitude and actions result in a richer life for them? Or is everything pretty much about you? Do you use your greatness, your power, your influence to lift up others and add good to their life? That's what Christmas is about, that's what God did with his greatness.

Will you let God enter into your life? Are you so great that you do not need his intervention and influence? Do you think that God overlooks your littleness or seeming insignificance?

So [the sheep herders] hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby who was lying in the manger. Luke 2v16 (NIV)

Jesus was born in the little town of Bethlehem, he grew up in insignificant Nazareth, wandered Galilee and Judea homeless as a grown man. It's in these kind of situations that God in Jesus rubbed shoulders with the overlooked, the marginalized, the unnoticed, the small people of the world. They were God's neighbors, his fellow wanderers.

To those that let God in, great things happened. Keep letting the great God into your small life.