Full

"But when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth His Son..." Gal. 4.4

This verse has been on my mind for about three weeks...just that phrase "the fullness of the time" has kept surfacing, unbidden. The company I work for is having a "write a Christmas devotion" emphasis and I signed up. They sent me the text they wanted one written on - "But when the fullness of the time came..." Strange. Humbling. Divine.

Think about that phrase a minute - "the fullness of the time." I'm not going to proceed by proper steps of scripture interpretation here. You probably don't care, but it's always good to say those things aloud. When time was full, when things had reached an apex of sorts, when everything was filled up to the brim, that's when Jesus came. When there was no more room, God sent forth His Son; in the fullness of the time.

Have you ever had an experience where it felt like you were full? After a dinner this evening at our fav Mexican place, my wife said, "I'm so full; I can't eat anything else." No room, not even any desire for that which one loves; full. I got a memo today describing my schedule tomorrow, it's a big sales blitz thing and the schedule is full; there's no room for any other presentations or last minute changes. It's full. We all know that feeling, that experience of being full. But just when we believe there's no more room, something squeezes in. That's what happened in the Christmas story. He doesn't request permission; he doesn't ask us what our schedules are like - no, He just gets sent forth into that fullness. And into ours. But since everything is full, He's coming in small, under the radar, humbled, incarnated in the muck and ruck of humanity, squeezed from a womb and then squeezed into swaddling clothes and then squeezed between Mary and Joe and the little drummer boy. His entry is strange, backdoor. I know all about the heavenly host appearing to the shepherds on the hillside while the Mormon Tabernacle Choir sang; that was big, no doubt. But the shepherds saw it and no one else and who believes shepherds' tales? Nobody really; maybe their mommas.

We've got a lot of folks carrying on these days about God's bigness and how we've lost a sense of that and how we need to taste again of the grandeur of God and His Omni-titles...Omnipresent, Omniscient, etc. Whew! That makes me tired just typing it. I'm putting my eggs in the basket of small, incarnation, the Big becoming Little, what ole' Lewis called "the grand miracle," a God who is able to wiggle in when everybody's says, "We're full." I don't know if you can make heads or tails of what I've just typed; my eyes are red from a days' reading. But God's wiggling, squeezing, squirming in yet again this season; He's showing us, if we've eyes to see, that full is not an obstacle for Him; in fact, that may be where and when He works best. When He wants to get sent forth, He gets sent forth. And that gives me hope tonight, because I feel like my life is FULL - no room. Maybe I'll post this again after I've fleshed it out a little more...that'll do for now.