“When they saw the star, they were overjoyed. On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.”

So, imagine you are sitting in a work meeting and someone makes a proposal to make a huge investment (like everything you have) into a new venture and not only that, but to take the company’s three best people and send them off to work on this new venture, with no real understanding of when or what they will produce.  And, when asked “Why should we do this?”, the answer from the person making the proposal is, “Because, I saw a sign that now is the right time.”  What would you do?  I know what I would likely do.  I’d probably laugh them out of the room and ask them to come back when they have the data and facts to back up their “hunch”.  Well, wouldn’t you do that too?  Most of us would, and mostly we would be right.  But, every now and then…

Three very rich, wise and educated men did just what I described above.  They saw a light in the sky, what we know to be a star and dropped everything, made all in investments in time, gifts (money) and effort and journeyed to see baby Jesus. And while, it was more than a “hunch”, to all others who they tried to explain their trip, it had to look foolish and ill-advised to do what they were going to do. But, isn’t that always the way it is when we go “all-in” on something? To everyone else, we look crazy, but on the back side, others wonder what they missed that the committed saw.  God asks us to go “all-in” with Him and assures us that even though we might look to others as a little off, a little naive, a little ill-informed, etc. that on the backside the promise is more than anyone else could ever imagine.  I suspect the same was true for the wise-men when they first saw Jesus and were then so over joyed that they had gone “all-in”.

Reference:  Matthew 2:10-11 (New Living Translation)