🎄 TREE 314: Status Quo

Christmas Throwback – TREE 69

One.

When Herod realised that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under… (Matthew 2:16, NIV)

Herod was the Roman-approved king of Judea. He benefitted greatly from the way things were arranged in his little kingdom. So when the Persians showed up to worship the newborn king of the Jews, you can understand why he was upset. Obviously a baby massacre is a horrendous response. But it illustrates the lengths people will go to to protect the status quo when they benefit from it.

This dark little piece of the Christmas story raises questions for us:

1. When you are fighting to maintain the status quo, ask: Am I participating in hurting other people and/or the planet by fighting to keep things the same?

2. When you’re trying to create change and you are facing resistance, ask: who is benefitting from the status quo? Now you know who you need to win over, defeat, ignore or, like the magi, sneak away from in order to make change happen.

Two.

The bible does give us plenty of angels in the Christmas story. Not this angel though. He didn’t even make it into It’s a Wonderful Life.

Three.

Beautiful and properly dark, this one. I know TREE is about giving you a positive start to the day. But the Christmas story is what it is. Stay with me. Tomorrow we get to the baby Jesus.

This week we are making an effort to create a good and productive space for conversations. My friend Denelle has written a conversation prompt for each day. She and Skyler and I will all be checking in on the comments section. We’d love for you to join us with your thoughts.

Fun conversational fact: Wednesday’s post has the most comments of any TREE post so far.

Today Denelle is asking…

Do you have a plan¹ for changing the status quo in your life?

Grow slowly
Jeff

1. A plan is different than a wish.