Following the Star 
Pause
God's love is always faithfully at work, always chasing after us.
God's love continues to enter into all the ordinary, marvelous, and messy realities of life in this world.
May you experience this great and faithful love today.
Listen
As for you, Bethlehem of Ephrathah, though you are the least significant of Judah’s forces, one who is to be a ruler in Israel on my behalf will come out from you. His origin is from remote times, from ancient days.
Therefore, he will give them up until the time when she who is in labor gives birth. The rest of his kin will return to the people of Israel.
He will stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God. They will dwell secure, because he will surely become great throughout the earth; he will become one of peace.
Micah 5:2-5a
Think
Out of the “least significant of Judah’s forces”, this ruler of peace will come. He will care for and guide his people. Some see these words echoing into the story of the arrival of Jesus as a ordinary baby to ordinary parents in the ordinary town of Bethlehem. Ordinary.
God has always seemed to enjoy using the most ordinary of people to do God’s work. Even those who do headline-grabbing things for God often come from the most ordinary of backgrounds. God’s work of love often isn’t flashy.
If you feel like your life is a bit ordinary, good news! You’re exactly the kind of person through which God loves to work! You don’t have to be voted “most likely to succeed” to be used by God; you only have to be available and willing. How might God be calling you to be a part of the work of loving others and working for peace? It may be in ordinary ways in ordinary places. And that’s okay — God has always loved the ordinary.
Chris Cash
Pray
God of Love, you've often used the most ordinary people in the most ordinary ways to share your love with the world. Just like this ruler from Bethlehem, let me be open to the ways you want to use me to love and care for your people. May I too be a person of peace. Amen.
Go
Today, may you experience the relentless, faithful love of God entering your world. May it change you.
May that same love send you out into this world to relentlessly, faithfully love others as you have been loved.
