Average Joe.

At Christmas, unless you’re celebrating a solstice or thinking of an obese elf who breaks into people’s homes and eats their food, you’re at some point considering the Nativity story. Most focus on Mary, but my mom recently sent me an email that made me consider Joseph.

“Here are some words of encouragement,” my mom said in the email. The verse was Matthew 1:20, and upon the first reading of it, I wasn’t sure what to make of it.

But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.

How does this apply to me? I wondered.

You know, at Christmas time we don’t really hear a lot about Joseph. He’s sort of a person in the story who’s there but as background. There’s not much that seems spectacular about him. We have songs about Mary and her thoughts and feelings and experience. We hear about the angels, and the shepherds, and the wise men.

Joseph, not so much.

Upon reading it again, thinking over the story and the little I know about Joseph, it began to sink in why, possibly, this verse was fairly important. He was just an average guy, maybe, except that God picked him for this. What Joseph did not — could not — understand, and what he had no part in making or being otherwise involved in, was still something God was asking him to be faithful about.

But God, this isn’t the way I planned or wanted it, we might think when the situation suddenly takes a turn for the less-than-ideal. It doesn’t make sense. Are you punishing me?

I’m asking you to do it anyway, He might reply, selective about which questions he answers. Do you trust me?

It’s like Isaiah 42:16, a verse I’ve shared with a few people lately, a verse that talks about, essentially, not knowing what is that lies before you, but going anyway.

You don’t know where or why? Go anyway. Others think you’re being foolish or not making the wise or safe decision? Do it anyway. The skeptic or the well-wisher has many wise concerns and warnings on your apparent foolishness? Thank them, rebuild your damaged faith when they’re done with you, and keep heading forward.

Things get dumped in our laps that we maybe didn’t deserve or have any hand in or even feel prepared for; but sometimes we’re asked to not be afraid, step in and be involved even if we don’t understand, and then go forward.

A recent column in “World Magazine” by Andree Seu (seen reprinted here) had a paragraph that jumped out at me, reminding me of my desire to over-think into non-action when things arise that I don’t understand:

Let me have risk-takers around me. Just as a practical matter. Let me have Christians who try things that fail, and then try something else. [...] Send me a friend who would rather make a fool of himself obeying what he is 80 percent sure the Word commands than play it safe, or who supports missionaries beyond his means. I want to hang out with a woman who snaps to the voice of the Spirit, rather than mind-screwing it till it subsides. Or who puts her full weight on the promises of God and doesn’t get so mired in theological discussion of “context” that the promise is whittled to nothing.

Joseph could have decided to put Mary away quietly. After all, it logically seemed she’d been unfaithful to him. I don’t have to repeat the story to you. While I wish God would send me angels to reassure me of the direction of things I am in to help me from “mind screwing” myself into inaction, I have to keep going.

Do you know how frightening it is to put your full weight of existence and hope and faith on the promises of God when your mind is screaming at you not to? When even the Christian friends and publications might have more safe advice for you? When everything says “you are a huge fool and you’re going to crash and burn when this is done?”

Sometimes, I wish I didn’t know so much. I wish I was blind and naive enough to just take Him at his word and go.

Like an average Joe.