Tuesday, November 26, 2013

November 27, 2013

"But when the set time had fully come, God sent His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship." Galatians 4:4-5

You are probably familiar with Murphy's Law. In case you aren't it goes like this: 

Murphy's Law - If anything can go wrong -- it will.

Maybe you haven't heard some of the additional corollaries to this cynical law:


* Murphy's First Corollary - Left to themselves, things tend to go from bad to worse.
* Murphy's Second Corollary - It is impossible to make anything foolproof because fools are so ingenious.
* Quantitative Revision of Murphy's Law - Everything goes wrong all at once.
* Murphy's Constant - Matter will be damaged in direct proportion to its value.
* The Murphy Philosophy - Smile... tomorrow will be worse.

Conclusions:
  1. If there is a possibility of several things going wrong, the one that will cause the most damage will be the first one to go wrong. 
    Corollary - If there is a worse time for something to go wrong, it will happen then.
  2. If several things that could have gone wrong have not gone wrong, it would have been ultimately beneficial for them to have gone wrong.
  3. Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.
  4. If anything can't go wrong, it will anyway.
  5. If you perceive that there are four possible ways in which something can go wrong, and circumvent these, then a fifth way, unprepared for, will promptly develop.
  6. If everything seems to be going well, you have obviously overlooked something.
  7. Everything takes longer than you think.
  8. You never find a lost article until you replace it.
  9. If nobody uses it, there's a reason.
  10. You get the most of what you need the least.
If there is ever a time when things can go wrong it is around the Holidays when so many things are planned.and, therefore, many bad things can happen.

As a matter of fact, if you were Mary and Joseph, deeply involved in the events of the first Christmas it must have seemed like everything that could go wrong WAS going wrong! It must have seemed like Murphy's Law was in effect.

Try to put yourself in their place.

What a bad time to get pregnant!

What a terrible time for a census!

What a lousy time to have to take a long trip on a donkey!

What an inconvenient place to have to travel!

What a horrible time for King Herod to get paranoid!

At a time in their lives when they had plans for things to go right, everything seemed to be going wrong!

But, despite all the problems, a miracle was about to happen!

Christmas proves that even when everything seems to be going badly a miracle can still happen! That's Mercy's Law!

Mercy's Law trumps Murphy's Law every time!