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As he was thinking about this, an angel from the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, "Joseph son of David, don't be afraid to take Mary as your wife, because the child she carries was conceived by the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you will call him Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins." (Matthew 1:20-21 CEB) Joseph was at the lowest point of his life. His engagement was over. His future was gone. His heart was broken. And he'd made the

Doing the right thing isn't always rewarded. Sometimes it's punished. Sometimes it costs us everything. Sometimes it leaves us feeling completely alone. But God sees. God knows. And God doesn't abandon people who do the right thing, even when it costs them everything.

We think of Christmas as a time for family gatherings, attending parties, and just being with the people we love. So we can easily feel let down at Christmas when we don't fit in with our family, or get invited to any parties, or have people we feel close to. But even though Christmas is a time when we can feel alone, Jesus' birth reminds us that God is always with us.

We've all had moments when everything fell apart. When the life we thought we were building suddenly crumbled. When the person we trusted betrayed us. When the future we'd been counting on disappeared. If that's how you're feeling, I want you to know: you're not alone. God sees you. God knows what you're going through.

There it is. The heart of Christmas in two verses. God loved the world. Not just you. Not just me. Not just people who look like us or think like us or believe like us. The world. All of us. Every single person.

You don't have to save the world to make Christmas meaningful. You don't have to do something extraordinary to share the love of Christ. You just have to notice the people around you and do something – anything – to help.

When we really understand that God loves everyone, not just us, it should open our eyes to the people around us. It should make us stop and notice. It should move us to do something. That's what Christmas calls us to do. To see the people around us. To really see them. And then to do something about it.

Getting what we want isn't the same as getting what we need. And what we need isn't more stuff or better decorations or perfect family gatherings. What we need is to know that our lives matter. That we're not just taking up space on this planet. That there's a purpose to our existence that goes beyond accumulating things and checking items off our wish lists.

We don't mean to be selfish at Christmas, but somehow the holidays become more about what we want to get than what we can give. So our Christmas lists grow longer, our expectations get higher, and we make this season revolve around us. And that might just be part of why we feel let down at Christmas. Because Christmas isn't about us...it's about Jesus.

The first thing we tend to think of at Christmas is ourselves. We think about what we want for Christmas. We think about our holiday traditions. We think about our Christmas celebrations. We make Christmas about us instead of about Jesus. And when Christmas doesn't go the way we want it to, when we don't get what we hoped for, when our expectations aren't met, we feel let down.