A Stinky Christmas?

Of all the places to be born...a stable!

I think of visiting my grandma and grandpa in the hills of Pennsylvania. We called that grandpa 'Pappy Harold.' He and my grandma never had much. Their farm somehow had sustained and raised their 13 children.

They had a barn. I think the only time we went in was when they had a pony named Charlie Brown. We'd make our way carefully through the musty smelling barn to see him, a short bedraggled pony with white stringy bangs in his eyes.

Musty dampness wasn't the only thing we'd smell...pungent horse manure, diesel from the farm equipment, the sweat and toil from a farmer throughout the years.

God chose a stable.

Why?

He is a God of the workin' man...a God of the blue-collar worker...a God more interested in reaching into an open, struggling heart than a heart poisoned with self-importance.

My heart. My heart is often stinkin' like Pappy Harold's barn and that stable of long ago.

Doesn't God mind?

Why would the God of the Universe who made the most amazing orange beachball of a sun to rise this morning...choose a stinky stable? Choose a stinky heart?

He goes to the need.

Those with needs will listen. Those with needs will receive. Those with needs will be scoured clean in His presence.

Praise you, Jesus. Only you can clean my stinkin heart. YOU CAME FOR ME! The stable was just the pre-curser for the rest of stink You would experience...only human stink would be far worse than an animals - far more deliberate, calculated and raw.

You came for sinners. I AM SO THANKFUL YOU DID! In your presence I can smell like the freshness of a land bathed in rain.