“Discover God in the places you might least expect to meet Him. He is waiting, and not just in church. You just never know where you might run into a deep encounter with the Father.”
I’ve excerpted that from the dust jacket of the book “Glimpses of an Invisible God.”
The thought is a reminder to me of the circumstances surrounding the birth of Jesus.
What was the likelihood of finding the new born Son of God cradled in the feeding trough of a cattle shed in an obscure little backwater town? No wonder the angel who announced the birth of Jesus to the shepherds also gave them directions as to where He could be found and how they would recognize Him when they saw Him.
“The Savior-yes the Messiah, the Lord-has been born tonight in Bethlehem, the City of David! And this is how you will recognize him. You will find a baby lying in a manger, wrapped snugly in strips of cloth” (Luke 211-12).
“They ran to the village and found Mary and Joseph. And there was the baby, lying in the Manger” (Luke 2:16).
Shepherds were unlikely people to receive the birth announcement. Bethlehem was an unlikely town to be the birthplace of the divine Christ Child. The youthful virgin mother and His adoptive father, Joseph were an unlikely couple to parent the Son of God. A cow shed was an unlikely nursery and a feeding trough was an unlikely crib. But it was in the unlikely that God was found.
“Such a Babe in such a place, Can He be the Savior? Ask the saved of all the race Who have found His favor(“Gentle Mary Laid Her Child” stanza 1).
God is known to turn up in the most unlikely place. So don’t be surprised if He shows up where you least expect Him. He once did, you know?

Darryl Maxwell,
Retired Baptist Minister