Max Lucado - In the manger: 25 Inspirational Selections for Advent

Then God said, Let there be light.

G ENESIS 1:3

S eated at the great desk, the Author opens the large book. It has no words because no words exist. No words exist because no words are needed. There are no ears to hear them, no eyes to read them. The Author is alone.

And so he takes the great pen and begins to write. Like an artist gathers his colors and a woodcarver his tools, the Author assembles his words.

There are three. Three single words. Out of these three will pour a million thoughts. But on these three words, the story will suspend.

He takes his quill and spells the first. T-i-m-e.

Time did not exist until he wrote it. He, himself, is timeless, but his story would be encased in time. The story would have a first rising of the sun, a first shifting of the sand. A beginning... and an end. A final chapter. He knows it before he writes it.

Time. A footspan on eternitys trail.

Slowly, tenderly, the Author writes the second word. A name. A-d-a-m.

As he writes, he sees him, the first Adam. Then he sees all the others. In a thousand eras in a thousand lands, the Author sees them. Each Adam. Each child. Instantly loved. Permanently loved. To each he assigns a time and appoints a place. No accidents. No coincidences. Just design.

The Author makes a promise to these unborn: In my image, I will make you. You will be like me. You will laugh. You will create. You will never die. And you will write.

They must. For each life is a book, not to be read, but rather a story to be written. The Author starts each life story, but each life will write his or her own ending.

What a dangerous liberty. How much safer it would have been to finish the story for each Adam. To script every option. It would have been simpler and safer. But it would not have been love. Love is only love if chosen.

So the Author decides to give each child a pen. Write carefully, he writes.

Lovingly, deliberately, he writes a third word, already feeling the pain. I-m-m-a-n-u-e-l.

The greatest mind in the universe imagined time. The truest judge granted Adam a choice. But it was love that gave Immanuel, God with us.

The Author would enter his own story. The Word would become flesh. He, too, would be born. He, too, would be human. He, too, would have feet and hands, tears and flesh.

And most importantly, he, too, would have a choice. Immanuel would stand at the crossroads of life and death and make a choice.

The Author knows well the weight of the decision. He pauses as he writes the page of his own pain. He could stop. Even the Author has a choice. But how can Love not love? So he chooses life, though it means death, with hope that his children will do the same.

And so the Author of Life completes the story. He drives the spike in the flesh and rolls the stone over the grave. Knowing the choice he will make, knowing the choice all Adams will make, he pens, The End, then closes the book and proclaims the beginning.

Let there be light!

A Gentle Thunder

O Lord, Author of my life, thank you for creating me in your image and starting my story. Help me write it carefully and truly become like you. Come, O come, Immanuel, and help me complete my story well. In Jesus name, amen.