If you sought to change the world, what would be the best way? Perhaps fame and notoriety might serve as key players in the advancement of your agenda? A top-down approach might prove effective as leadership drives the world, and culture comes from the top down. Credibility and a solid résumé might help as well. A first impression can come from what people have heard about you as much as what they experience of you.

These ideas resonate in our culture, but God had another way.

Matthew 2 shares a small note that Joseph settled in Nazareth with his small family (after fleeing to Egypt to escape the infanticide of Herod the Great). Matthew informs the reader that this small note holds great weight as its occurrence fulfills messianic prophecy about the Messiah, but there is something more in this statement that Matthew does not overtly share:

Had Jesus returned to Bethlehem to grow up, He would have carried an air of royalty as one who came from a royal city. His résumé would have provided many with an impression of messianic reputation and excitement. He would have had the résumé to accompany His expected ascension into world-changing leadership.

God called for something else. Jesus was raised in Nazareth, a place of less-than-great association and reputation. Scholars note that Nazareth was an obscure and unimportant town that would set Jesus up for contempt and rejection.*

God decided to change the world from the bottom up. Indeed, Jesus humbled Himself to the lowest place. He lived rejected and without résumé and yet fulfilled messianic prophecy and changed the world. He did this through a series of acts of obedience.

God does not ask us to change the world; He asks us to be obedient. He does not note our résumé, nor does He concern Himself with the strategies of our western society. The plans of strategy of man are countless, but the purpose of God will prevail.

Today, take just one step.

Maybe today you need to lay down your ambition. Maybe you need to ask God to forgive you for attempting to change the world through your own means and strategy. Maybe you need to choose obedience even if obedience looks like obscurity. Maybe you need to choose the obscurity of Nazareth when your own ideas look like the royalty of Bethlehem. The answers to your prayers may come from unlikely roads to unlikely places.

Whatever the step, ask God to direct it. Invite Him to speak. He will.

Life is a long road. Walk it with Jesus. Take a step today… just one is fine.

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*Insights on Nazareth and Bethlehem: Morris, Leon. The Gospel According to Matthew. Pillar New Testament Commentary. Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1992.