Advent is a season of waiting for God to show up. For those of us who are followers of Jesus, it’s a season of a month’s long anticipation. As children, the season of Advent was more about Santa and presents than Jesus and angels. But as we grew up that anticipation became something deeper. We lost the desire to get more gifts and focused on giving the special gift to the special someone.

This Advent devotion is about finding that perfect gift in the unexpected. The statement is true that says God tends to work in some very unexpected ways. We begin by looking at the unexpected places that Advent reveals.

Our first stop is Nazareth in Galilee. It’s a no name place really. But in the grand scheme of things it’s the perfect location to find the greatest gift of all.

Galilee was a place of great turmoil in the Old Testament. In Isaiah 9:1 we read, But there will be no gloom for her who was in anguish. In the former time he brought into contempt the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the latter time he has made glorious the way of the sea, the land beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the nations.

No gloom? What’s that about? And Zebulun, Naphtali, Galilee? Where is that? The simple answer is that those provinces were all northern provinces of Israel at one point. This was the place where nearly all of the enemy nations would invade. They’d come traipsing through these little provinces leaving them in darkness, devastation and death. Gloom was all they knew!

But here the promise would be that in the most unexpected of places is exactly where God would do His most amazing and perfect work. It was into the darkness of an unexpected place like Galilee that God would send His Son.

As you wait with great anticipation for Christmas, looking for that perfect gift. Remember the greatest gift you ever received wasn’t found in the most expensive store that was perfectly decorated. It was found in a dark town. In a rundown province. In a war torn region that knew darkness and needed light.

It’s often in the most unexpected places that we find greatest evidence of God’s love.