December 17, 2025 // Wednesday of the Third Week of Advent
Read the Word // Open your Bible to today’s Gospel: Matthew 1:1-17
Reflect on the Word //
Sometimes when I’m talking to my toddlers I like to quiz them on where they fall in the family line up. I’ll say something like, “Do you know which baby you are of mine? Are you baby number 3? How about baby number 7? And then, “And do you know which babies came before you?” We run through all the siblings, and they smile and giggle when we get to their special spot in the line up. This conversation is mostly just silly and cute but it also firms up a beautiful reality for them and for me. Their existence has a place and a purpose in our family life. They were meant to be. People came before and people came after but their place is unique, special, unrepeatable. A spark in the narrative of humanity, and the start of something remarkable—new life. Endless possibility and optimism, ordained and ordered by the Creator of all.
I think this is a part of the beauty of humankind: Our connectedness and our place also speaks to our purpose. Who we came from and where we are going matters; our existence in a time and place matters.
It’s easy to skim through the genealogy narrative in the Gospel, but for today, let’s not. Let’s see this lineage as deeply meaningful and also deeply human. For God became Man, to be with us, to be known by us, and to elevate our humanity. The family tree is now holy; your place in the world is holy.
God is so good that He loves our existence, and He sees our purpose as infinite and eternal. He is so good that Jesus Christ was born into something as normal as lineage—to be like us, so that we can be like Him. The ordinary, now super-ordinary. The day-to-day, divine.
Relate to the Lord // Today, be on the lookout for the divine in your day to day.
Blythe Fike est l'épouse de Kirby et mère de huit petits enfants dans la petite ville de SoCal. Elle croit fermement que la sainteté se trouve dans le quotidien et s'efforce de vivre cette vérité, malgré ses innombrables tâtonnements. Elle aime le soleil à fortes doses, la bonne musique et les baby-sitters. Elle est un auteur contributeur du livre de prières de dévotion de nos enfants, Rise Up . En savoir plus sur elle ici .
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