“Look! The virgin will conceive a child! She will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel, which means “God is with us.””

There is lots of news in the Geo-political world, across US politics and throughout companies about who are allies and who are not.  We are seeing old alliances fall and new ones emerge.  We are watching mergers and acquisitions of companies, once unheard of, now taking place.  Only Homer Simpson in 1989 could predict that 21st Century Fox and Disney would one day lay down their swords and decide that they are better off together than apart.  So, it is unpredictable and somewhat foolhardy to draw hard lines as to who is with us and who is against us. Instead, what if we started from the place that we are all in this together and that we can better succeed by being additive first, instead of starting with the attitude of “it will never work” or “We could never work with them.” Besides, our everyday outlook will be better when start from a place of the possible.

Immanuel. It is curious to me that we seem to let this part of His name fade away from our thoughts, conversations and readings as we move away from the Christmas season.  Yet, we count on Him being with us at all times and hold onto that promise dearly when we are in need or feel alone.  As we go into this weekend and next week, celebrating the birth of our Lord, let us deeply take in the name Immanuel to remember that He is always with us every hour of our workday and every moment of our lives.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.  Thank you for another year of reading along with purposed worKING.  Lord giving, I will be back with our first 2018 post on January 2nd.  Have a blessed finish to 2017!

Reference:   Matthew 1:23 (New Living Translation)