When you were a kid, did you wonder with anticipation about what you were going to get for Christmas? (Maybe you are like me and you still do.) Did you wonder if you would get the presents you had been asking for? Have you ever discovered your gifts before Christmas? I know a few people who try very hard to find their gifts early.
One year, while playing hide and seek, I hid in my mom’s closet. I discovered a Louisville Slugger baseball bat tucked away in the back. I remember staring at it, confused. My first thought was: I didn’t know Mom plays baseball!
I carried that confusion for weeks. I never questioned the bat itself. I just filled in the gaps with my own story. In my mind, it felt more believable that my mom lived a secret life where she would sneak out of the house and play semi-professional baseball and be back in time for dinner than the idea that the bat was meant for me. When Christmas morning finally arrived, I unwrapped that same baseball bat. It was not until then that it all clicked in my head. The gift was there the whole time. I just didn’t understand it yet.
That memory comes back to me every December. It reminds me how often we misunderstand what God is doing simply because we do not see the full picture. The Christmas story invites us into that same kind of mystery. God was working long before Bethlehem. Promises were spoken generations earlier, and preparation was underway long before anyone noticed. When Jesus arrived, He did not come with spectacle. He came humbly and exactly on time.
Christmas teaches us that God is often at work before we understand it. Mary pondered these things in her heart. The shepherds stepped into a moment they did not expect. The Magi followed signs they could not fully explain. Faith was required before understanding.
Leadership often asks the same of us. There will be seasons when the plan feels hidden, progress feels slow, or direction feels foggy. In those moments, we are often tempted to fill in the gaps with our own assumptions and efforts. We hurry to try to create certainty on our own. Yet some of the most meaningful growth happens when we learn to trust that God is already at work.
I have seen this play out in leadership more times than I can count. Growth usually happens when the path feels the most obscured. The work God is doing in you and through you may be farther along than you realize. In these moments, trust and faith come before understanding.
Perhaps we could allow the Christmas story to remind us that faith does not require full information. It requires trust. The bat was already in the closet. The gift was already prepared. I simply was not ready to understand it yet.
As we close this year, my encouragement is simple. Pause. Reflect. Trust. God may be doing something meaningful in your life, your leadership, or your organization that has not fully revealed itself yet. That does not mean it is absent. It may mean it is unfolding exactly as it is meant to be.
Christmas invites us to rest in the truth that God is faithful. His timing is steady. And He is always at work, even when we do not yet understand what He is preparing to place in our hands.
Tom
#leadershipdevelopment #reflection #faith