Before Him Lowly Bend

O holy night! The stars are brightly shining. 

It is the night of the dear Savior's birth...

Fall on your knees! O hear the angel voices! O night divine!

These are some of the words to one of my very favorite Christmas songs, but as the children and I listened to it a year after moving to Thailand, a remark from my son really got me to thinking. "You know," he said, "before we moved here I always pictured going down on one knee, but now I understand that it's really on both knees with your face to the ground." 


This is one of many things I've learned from living in a Buddhist country. Respect is ingrained in this culture, and children are taught this from infancy - everything from a small "wai" to show respect to someone of greater position than you, to a full-body bow for the king or Buddha. The Old Testament scriptures about bowing to idols of wood, stone and gold take on new meaning and become clearer to picture after seeing faithful Thais giving homage to the Buddha in the temples.

But with this new understanding comes an important question: 

Do I really understand what it means to bow before our awesome God, giving Him reverence as we acknowledge His greatness? 

It seems that as Americans we have worked very hard to make sure that everyone is equal; indeed, it is one of the very reasons we even exist as a country - the desire to be rid of one in ultimate authority over all in favor of government by the people. Now certainly, the scriptures teach that all people are equal in value and importance in the sight of the Creator, but God is not our equal. He is above, other, the Almighty One deserving of our worship and worthy to be in control over His creation. And I need to understand what it means to bow before Him in adoration and humility. 

My prayer this Christmas season is that we will take the time to think and pray and consider this, so that we might truly understand and live out the words to this song, "Behold your King! Before Him lowly bend."

Blessings to all of you this Christmastime. Thank you for joining me on my journey. My prayer is that the true Light will illuminate your darkness this season, 

and that in His glory you will find all you need.