An Extraordinary Gift
Lk 1:26-38
Illustration
by King Duncan

Wade Burton tells about a man who was riding a bus from Chicago to Miami. He had a stop-over in Atlanta. While he was sitting at a lunch counter, a woman came out of the ladies' rest room carrying a tiny baby. She asked the man, "Will you hold my baby for me, I left my purse in the rest room." He did. But as the woman neared the front door of the bus station, she darted out into the crowded street and was immediately lost in the crowd.

The man couldn't believe his eyes. He rushed to the door to call the woman, but could not see her. What should he do? Put the baby down and run?

When calmness settled in he went to the Traveler's Aid booth and they soon found the real mother. The woman who had left him holding the baby was not the baby's mother. She had taken the child, perhaps to satisfy a motherly urge to hold a child. The man breathed a sigh of relief when the real mother was found. After all, what was he to do with a baby?

In a way each of us is in the same situation as this gentleman. We are left with the question, "What will we do with the baby?" Have we really come to terms with the fact that this baby is not simply extraordinarily gifted, but that he is himself a gift from the heart of God?

ChristianGlobe Networks, Inc., ChristianGlobe Illustrations, by King Duncan