Whenever we are at a store and Ivy is cruising along in her shopping cart, she always loves when I count to three. Of course it is not the numbers that thrill her, but the fact that when I reach “three” I am going to give the cart a push and let her go sailing down the aisle. I always race behind her and catch the cart before there is a deadly collision…

   As I watch her it is difficult to imagine she is probably the same age as Jesus when the Wise Men arrived to bring gifts and worship. Relient K’s new Christmas CD has a song titled, “I Celebrate the Day” and the chorus has these words: “The first time that you opened your eyes did you realize that you would be my savior…”

   Stop and imagine the baby, come to change the world. The child destined to save us by giving up everything. I wonder, as he sat on his parents lap, what did little Jesus know? Was his life a slow revelation-like we all experience-or did he bear the weight of salvation from the beginning? I like to think he had the human experience of learning God’s plan-who knows if I am right! But I picture him waking up one morning and realizing “I am God” – imagine the look on His face! Even more, I would have been thrilled to see the hope of the child Jesus. Every child believes the impossible (old people get jaded) and I imagine before Jesus knew the cross he believed everyone would abandon “power” and follow him to salvation. I like to imagine this is what he talked to the priests in the temple about when he was “lost” at twelve. Envisioning the Father chasing behind him to save … 

   Still he might have known everything when He was one. Knowing the Father would have to allow the deadly collision… before the save.