The angel greets Mary, “You have found favor with God. ³¹ “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.”  And this glorious announcement is prefaced with “Do not be afraid.”

Joseph is told, “What is conceived in Mary is from the Holy Spirit. ²¹ You are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.” But again the preface: “Do not be afraid.”

When God invades our lives and takes them over, there is a cost. Mary would be gossiped about when she “showed” too early. Joseph would be gossiped about when his wife gave birth too early. A sword would pierce their hearts. “Do not be afraid.”

Oh, wouldn’t we love to be grabbed by God, and filled with his Spirit. To live seeing God with the eyes of faith, his joy bubbling up in our hearts. To live in his presence, in the continual feast which is worship.

But our path into experiencing the joy, presence and power of God will come with a price. And the same imperative: Do not be afraid.

“Woe to you when all men speak well of you,” Jesus says (Luke 6:26). Woe to the impressive, the dazzling, who have it all, do it all, are the cleverest, thinnest, richest; best housekeeper, best-organized, highest-achiever IF what you have sacrificed for all this glory is unrecognized, unpraised, soul-blessing, joy-giving, time-consuming communion with him who alone can fill your soul with joy. 

Christian, if your current life isn’t giving you joy and peace and the soul-satisfying presence of God, you must live differently.   You must make room for Him. Do not be afraid.

We might seek Christ’s help to be a little thinner, a littler richer, a bit more successful, and to make our kids like other people’s Christmas-letter kids, so all men speak well of us.

But, odds are, he has a different agenda. If our desires for wealth, fame; social, church or career success, the perfect home or garden or body aren’t bringing us joy, are distracting us from our quest to know him, he may choose to block them.

Christ will never consent to be an Add-On, a Plug-In to help make foolishly overloaded life work a little bit better, so that we can squeeze in even more.

He wants our whole hearts. Us.

Since God can give us at the snap of his fingers, all the things the pagans run after (Matthew 6: 32-33), his dream for us is not the things we achieve through spirit-numbing, joy-crushing, body-wearying, heart-atrophying hard work, but the things He wants to freely give.

Complete Joy (John 15:11)

Peace that the world cannot give (John 14:27)

Rest (Matthew 11: 28)

Our souls filled with a fountain of living waters. (John 4:13)

Let’s labour less for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to eternal life (John 6:27). Let’s make room for communion with Christ whose joy alone can fill our soul. For the things of this world—we’ve tried them, there is no peace, no joy, no rest in them.

Let’s put time with God and his life-giving word first, and prune, prune, prune, all the activity and acquisition and trivial  time-and-life-sucking demands and “duties” we’ve allowed the world to impose on us. 

And perhaps our houses and gardens will be a little scruffier, and our kids will be put into fewer frazzling activities that they will—guaranteed!!—soon drop. If we don’t drop before they do.

Let’s prune our screen-time—tv, internet, mobile phones and their junk food for the soul—and instead, in silence, hang out with him.

We will not conform to our busy society; we will slow down; we will dare to be different; we will slowly exchange the crazy of our lives for the King.

Do not be afraid. Revise your life so that it feeds your soul.

Do not be afraid. Why not be totally changed into fire?