The Basic Needs

By: Sandra Harris Frey

The holiday season is filled with shopping, decorating, cooking, baking, traveling, and of course, the family visits to your home or traveling to visit family. This can all become very stressful since we are always on a timeline and our list seems to grow and grow each year. We have it pretty easy considering everything that Mary and Joseph were faced with many years ago.

Can you imagine being nine months pregnant, traveling via donkey, and upon reaching your destination you find that there isn’t a room to be had? I need to emphasize the words nine months pregnant traveling via donkey. Joseph found basic needs for his family that night. A warm place to rest and food to eat. It was in a barn and our Lord was born in a manger, but Joseph had the faith to find a place to stay even if it wasn’t an inn.

Do we have that kind of faith? Do we just find what we need? Here’s an interesting concept. Let’s put the “wants” aside this holiday and give of ourselves to others in need. I’m pretty sure most of us have all that we need. Trust me, there’s someone out there today who could use a prayer, a coat, a warm place to sleep, a hot meal, and the story of Jesus being born in a manger.

Luke 2:1-7 - The Birth of Jesus

At that time the Roman emperor, Augustus, decreed that a census should be taken throughout the Roman Empire. (This was the first census taken when Quirinius was governor of Syria.) All returned to their own ancestral towns to register for this census. And because Joseph was a descendant of King David, he had to go to Bethlehem in Judea, David’s ancient home. He traveled there from the village of Nazareth in Galilee. He took with him Mary, his fiancée, who was now obviously pregnant. And while they were there, the time came for her baby to be born. She gave birth to her first child, a son. She wrapped him snugly in strips of cloth and laid him in a manger, because there was no lodging available for them.