We are not alone!

I hate being on my own - not those wonderful few minutes of peace just after the kids have gone to school, but those times when either my wife or I are away and I have to spend an evening on my own. Jokes on the telly don't seem as funny, the house doesn't seem to be as warm, I go to bed much later than normal. It's natural - human beings are made to need one another - it's the way we are wired.

There are some who would say that we are alone in the universe - that human beings are here by an accident of nature (or the demands of evolution) and that is it - we are alone - there is nothing more than what we see and hear - there is no "spiritual" reality beyond our own minds and hearts.

But then in my mind I see a stable, a young woman - barely old enough to be married - giving birth to her first child in absolute poverty, I see strange visitors - educated men bringing strangely meaningful gifts; shepherds, their faces aglow with the light of a million angels sent to share the good news, "Today in David's town is born a Saviour;" I hear the angel's words to the baby's mother - "He shall be called Jesus, for he shall save his people" - and then the echo of the words of a godly man from many hundreds of years before who said this baby would be called "Emmanuel" which means "God with us."

The Christmas story is an amazing example of the truth that we are not alone - that a God who cared about those he had made was prepared to become part of His own creation; to save it from its selfishness and its greed; to be with us - with us when the day is bright, with us when the dark times come, with us when we get up, with us when we go to bed.

This is the truth which I see written in a baby's smile in a cattle trough in Bethlehem - we are not alone - God is with us - Forever.

Happy Christmas