(ill) Robin could probably sue me for false advertising if she wanted to. Sixteen years ago, she thought she was marrying a soon-to-be attorney with political aspirations. Instead, she got a soon-to-be preacher with poverty expectations. From Joe Lawyer to Jonah ?. The difference in what I was going to do with my life was the difference between lightning and lightning bug!

When I graduated from high school, I really thought I had my life all planned out! First Harvard, then Law School, then the White House. But God had different plans, and Harvard Crimson was not in them. But Cardinal Red was! The School of Life had more to teach me than any law School could, and along the way I found out that a home ? with someone you love ?. is always better than a house.

When Robin said "I do" in 1986, she had no idea was she was agreeing to! Neither did I! But the road between then and now has been one paved with surprises, adventures and a string of events that were highly unplanned.

T/S: The notion of unplanned interruptions to our neatly ordered lives is a reality every person can relate to. "The best laid plans of mice and men" run headlong into "Murphy's Law" at some point in every life. Even if the detours in your life, like mine, have been much more happy than hazardous, the simple fact remains that almost every person has some idea or plan for their life ? and with the same certainty, those plans will be changed.

(ill) Statistics tell us that most college students change majors an average of 6 times before they graduate. The average employee in America will draw paychecks from 11 different companies during their adult lives. Even our marriage and divorce statistics tell a story of plans gone amuck. Of life veering off course.

T/S: The question is not whether life will ever careen off of your highway of hopes and dreams ? BUT, what will you do WHEN it does! How have you responded in the past, and how are you preparing to respond for the next time life changes directions unexpectedly?

How we deal with life's interruptions is one of the defining qualities in who we are as people. Our character is determined NOT when life goes according to plan, but by how we react when it doesn't.

I don't know if there is any character in the Bible that faces this issue more personally that Mary's husband, Joseph. The carpenter from Nazareth was anticipating his forthcoming marriage to Mary, and suddenly all of those plans are swept away in angel dreams, and Divine visions and the slow realization that instead of refinishing furniture, he would be raising the Son of God. Instead of merely waiting on the happy day of his wedding, Joseph found himself and his life upside down, while he waited on Jesus to be born.

You and I can understand why God chose this man to be the earthly father to Christ, when we really examine how Joseph handled the interruptions to his life with faith and obedience. His life may have veered off course, but Joseph was still waiting on God. You and I would do well to follow that example.

(ill) If people haven't truly put their trust in Christ, they may feel they tried Christianity and found it lacking, when they haven't tried it at all.

-- Les Magee, Leadership, Vol. 11, no. 1.

I know, I know ?. Joseph saw an angel ? that's why he trusted God. But I also know human nature. Joseph saw that angel once that we know of --- he had to watch Mary's belly grow with a baby inside for 9 months ? knowing he was not the father. Trust does not come easily when understanding is far removed.

(ill) I can hear God speak to me on Sunday and forget it by Tuesday! Joseph had to trust God for 9 long months ?. while he waited.

I imagine every one of us either has been, at some time, or is in now, a situation that we don't completely understand. We cannot fathom the reasons why such circumstances have besieged us ? or, despite many sleepless nights and anxious hours, we just can't figure a way out. How do you get from restless uncertainty to complete trust?

Three times Matthew tells us that the Lord appeared to Joseph. Three times God revealed Himself and His will to Joseph. There are some powerful truths we can latch on to here.

3. Trust is demonstrated when we make God's plans our own goals.

The end result is that we see Joseph submitted to God. Trust always means submission. Perhaps that's why trust is so hard, because we are so unaccustomed to surrendering ourselves. Surrender means loser, quitter, not good enough, not strong enough, failure. Except in God's vocabulary --- where surrender .. or submission ?means strength and victory.

Without faith, it is impossible to please God. The heart of Christianity is our faith .. the trust that we place in God. In Who He is. In what He said He will do. In what the Bible says He has already done. In the Jesus' death on the cross, for our sins. In His resurrection that sets us free. The victory that has overcome the world is our faith.

Today, you are facing circumstances that you can't completely understand. Disease, death, debt, divorce ? have sent the train of your life way off the tracks. And you can't figure it out! The lesson of the Christmas story that Joseph teaches is the lesson that waiting on Jesus isn't always about final answers ? it's about complete faith.

Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen. Faith is by definition, not quantifiable or measurable. We cannot diagram it on the board and examine its parts. It is the logic of the spiritual realm, the currency of the unseen dimension.

(ill) The trend of government is to undergird us with material securities from the cradle to the grave, providing all kinds of insurances--health, old-age, education, unemployment and so on. In addition, we insure ourselves against fire, earthquake, hurricane, accident and old age. These safeguards are not wrong, but they can very easily become a serious hindrance to our complete trust in God. Undoubtedly, if our debts are paid and our refrigerator full, if we have money in the bank, we have a tendency to feel secure in ourselves and to sense our need of God less. Herein lies the danger. My greatest need is to feel and know my need of God every hour.

-- C. Stacy Woods in Some Ways of God. Christianity Today, Vol. 35, no.

The tough part of waiting on Jesus when our plans have gone off kilter, is maintaining the steadfastness and perseverance necessary to keep following God, when forces inside us and around us try to throw us off. The nature of satan and temptation is such that we can be assured of our enemy's attack on us when we are confused, weary or have that ?deer in the headlights' look because we have experienced too much change ? too quickly.

Our patient endurance is measured in our total obedience.

Anything less than total obedience is disobedience. (that hurts.) It's so much more satisfying to add up my obedience victories and tell myself that they surely outweigh my disobedience losses. But down deep, I know better. Waiting on Jesus is all about doing what He says until He returns. In fact, He taught that my obedience was how I proved I loved Him.

That means I must obey even when urges threaten me.

Besides Joseph, there is another great New Testament example in Simon Peter, whose encounter with Jesus is recorded by Luke, when Simon and the others had been fishing all night .. unsucessfully. Along comes Jesus, and tells them "Try again." Simon Peter was tired, discouraged, and probably irritated. Everything inside of him was crying out to go home. But even when he didn't want to, what he said was:

Like Peter, Joseph's commitment to follow God's will here is iron-clad. (ill) I mean, most men I know marry their wives understanding that honeymoon fun isn't going to happen until next year! But that was what Joseph did ? marry his beloved, enter into the most intimate relationship possible ? yet forego the most intimate expression of that relationship for 9 months.

* Do you think there were nights Joseph wanted Mary? He was human ? just like we are. Prone to impulses and desires that aren't always from God or directed at honoring Him. And yet we commit to total obedience, we develop inner character that is able to lean on Jesus and wait on Jesus ? even when we don't want to. Or when life veers way off course, we have a source of strength and resolve that we can tap into.

It only follows that I must obey even when pressure from others is overwhelming.

The vivid example of such determination is Noah, who spent 120 years building a boat for a promised flood, among a people that had never seen rain!

Let's not be patronizing and pretend that only teenagers have to face peer pressure. Fact is, we all live out our faith under the watchful scrutiny and often withering pressure from those around us. Pressure from family to live our lives the we way they think we should. Pressure from co-workers to live our lives the way the rest of the world does.

The Jewish custom and tradition dictated that sons, especially first-born sons took family names. Father's name. I can imagine Mary's mother-in-law scolding them, "Joseph, honey .. there is no one in our family named Jesus. What in the world did you name him Jesus for?"

(ill) On July 6, 1415, John Huss was taken to the place where he would be a martyr for the truth in which he believed. As he went to the stake, he was heard quoting Psalm 31:1 (KJV), "In thee, O Lord, do I put my trust; let me never be ashamed."

Joseph's example teaches us the role obedience plays in waiting.

(ill) In 1983, the U.S.A. issued a postage stamp commemorating the building of the first steel bridge in America. It was built across the Mississippi River at St. Louis. Many said it could not be built. They said it would never support its own weight. So James Eads, the builder, ordered fourteen locomotives to stop on the bridge at once. Then people trusted the bridge. They called it the eighth wonder of the world. The Lord Jesus Christ is the bridge between sinning man and a sinless God. We must trust him in order to cross it.