about following God’s directions

In the middle of shopping, wrapping, parties, and celebrations you can forget about having "God with us." What is so dramatic about the Christmas story is that God did become "with us" as a human being. Before Jesus’ birth, God was remote from mankind. God was in heaven and interacted with man but not as a human being. God was unseen, remote, and for the most part silent. When Jesus came into the world, God was interacting with all of us on a human to human level.

God chose Joseph to be a human model to be Jesus’ father. In this verse, we can see not only that Joseph was righteous in his heart, Joseph was also willing and able to do exactly what God wanted done. We don’t know much about Joseph from the scripture accounts, but what we do know is more than enough to tell us about Joseph’s character and willingness to lead his life as God directed. We also know Joseph was a man who loved Mary. Let all of us strive to be like Joseph before our Savior and always strive to follow His direction in our lives.