Dear God, this is the time of the Christmas season when we start to look at the prophecies that lead up to Jesus’s birth and life and marvel at how you enabled people to foresee what would happen. Isaiah. David. Zechariah (John the Baptist’s father). So many others. Sure, sometimes I read these passages that are supposed to be prophecies and I wonder if we aren’t stretching just a little, but that’s not the point of what I’m talking about here. What is the point? It’s that even those who lived to see them fulfilled didn’t realize what was happening until after it was all over.

Take Zechariah, for example, in Luke 1. He gets his angel visit and then is muted until eight days after John the Baptist is born. For those 10-ish months, he had a lot of time to think. He presumably communicated via writing to Elizabeth because she knew to name their son John (Luke 1:61), but he sat silent. During that 10 months, he saw Mary come and visit them. She had her own extraordinary story about an angel visit and being pregnant. Elizabeth’s baby in the womb leapt when he heard the sound of Mary’s voice. Some really great stuff was happening. So what did he do? He misinterpreted it. Here are some examples of what he got wrong in his own prophecy (at least as he understood it in the moment): (Verse 71) “Now we will be saved from our enemies and from all who hate us.” (Verses 74 and 75) “We have been rescued from our enemies so we can serve God without fear, in holiness and righteousness for as long as we live.” Sure, out of 12 verses he only missed on three, but, still, I know he would have been shocked if someone had told him exactly what was going to happen over the next 34 years. I’m sure he didn’t live to see it since he was “very old” (verse 7) when he got his angel visit, but it would have devastated him that day to know how his son’s life would end.

I think that’s why it is important to not try to figure out the bigger meaning of what is happening or what might happen right now. I have a friend who is an Aggie football fan. Okay, I have two friends who are Aggie football fans, and each of them sent me a long text this week detailing what has to happen for Texas A&M to make the college football playoff. I replied back that they just need to win and not worry about the rest because it will work itself out. They are ranked 5th. There are four teams in front of them and two of them play each other one more time. But Texas A&M still has three games left. There is no chance they get into the playoff without winning those games, so just win. Take each moment at a time–each play at a time–and win your games. The odds are that the rest will take care of itself.

The same is true for me. There are too many moving parts in life for me to figure out. I have my hopes for my children, but I have no idea which actions I take today will lead them down your path for them. The same is true for my work, my marriage, my community, my church, and my world. I don’t can’t sit and make the list of all of the steps that need to happen to achieve what I want to achieve. I just need to play the next play as best as I can. Today, that means starting this Saturday with this prayer time before I get about helping my wife decorate for Christmas, watch some college football, and meet with a friend about appraising some furniture.

Father, help me to just take life “one play at a time.” And sometimes the right play might be to lose a battle. I might need to take an intentional safety in order to get where I want to go. I might have to let the other team score to get the ball back one more time. So I put the outcomes of each activity in your hand, trusting that you will not let anything happen that is outside of your will. I will just show up for the next play. Holy Spirit, please be with me, guide me, and empower me to do what I need to do.

In Jesus’s name I pray,

Amen