Matthew 2:13-15. After Jesus' birth and the departure of the Magi, Joseph has a dream in which an angel appears to him and says "Rise, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there till I tell you; for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him." So Joseph immediately gets up, gets Mary and Jesus, and departs in the night for Egypt, where the family will remain until the death of Herod. "This was to fulfil what the Lord had spoken by the prophet, 'Out of Egypt have I called my son.'"

Wow, talk about obedience! Joseph is on it! I hear this story all the time, but one thing I like about my Bible journaling is that it forces me to really focus on a particular passage, to really think about it. When I think about Joseph here, I am just blown away - he has a dream and immediately acts on a in a very drastic way - he has no self-doubt, no second-guessing, no thought for his own comfort. He believes what the dream told him and he trusts God! Just think about that - Joseph knew the child was the Messiah, another angel had told him that, so he knew there would be trials, but he and Mary had just gone through some pretty drastic tough times bringing him into the world, and then they had been visited by the Magi and given treasures in recognition of who Jesus was. Personally, after all of this, I would have thought that the beginning trials were over for a bit, and God was giving us a chance to rest for while, to catch our breath. But then Joseph gets this urgent message in a dream. How very close Joseph must have been to God to know immediately that this was true. I have dreams all the time, and often, especially lately, I think they are messages from God. But I also know how tricky the devil is, and when I wake up from one of these dreams, I probe, I mull, I think, I ponder. Clearly I am not as close to God as I should be, as Joseph is, because I don't discern well enough, I don't know God's voice right away (this is something for me to work on). But Joseph does! He knows and acts immediately - waking up in the middle of the night, bundling the family out the door, and beginning, right then, the long trek to Egypt, where they will live for years. It's amazing! He has no attachment other than to God's will. That is how we all should be!

If an angel of God came to me in a dream tonight, and I knew it was an angel of God, and told me to get up immediately, take my family, and get out of the country that night, and stay away until he told me to return - would I do it? Would I act immediately, and leave everything behind, as Joseph did? It is a very humbling thought.

The other thing that strikes me here is, since I have been having these dreams and "messages," I have been feeling called to do and say certain things. Some of them are difficult for me, they are definitely outside my comfort zone and require a lot of trust in God. I have been thinking about Saint Paul a lot in this regard, and how he evangelized at the cost of all else. I feel a similar pull, and so have been relying a lot on Saint Paul. Saint Paul told us to avoid all of the desires of the flesh, including drunkenness. I usually think that this was to keep us sinless - it is so much easier to sin when we are drunk! But, given all the stress of these times, I see in myself and others how alcohol can be a crutch to get us through hard times. It is even more of a temptation for me when I am feeling called to do something I am uncomfortable doing. So I have to moderate this. This passage today made me think about that - what if Joseph had felt a bit celebratory or complacent after the Magi left, as I said I would have? What if, in that mood, he had had a drink too many - after all, all the hubbub was done, and he didn't have to go anywhere? What if he just let his guard down a little bit for this one night after having been through everything that he had just gone through? Then he might not have been able to fulfill the angel's instructions. He would have put Jesus at great risk, simply by excusing one night of slight drunkenness.

So Saint Paul's exhortations are not just so that we avoid sin, but also so that we are ready to act when we are called to do so, which could be at any moment, at any time, even while we are sleeping. Joseph knew that intuitively, he was so close to God. He was formed and lived in obedience to nothing but God's will.