DAY 8

Duck in a Bucket 

A friend of mine shared a lovely image once that I’ve never forgotten, she said when she was younger in her Christian faith she felt like a ‘duck in a bucket.’ She explained that when she was on her own, just her and God, she felt happy like a duck in its own bit of water; but when she had to metaphorically get poured out of the bucket and into a pond with other ducks, that’s when it started to feel uncomfortable.

Other people can be our greatest encouragers and they can also press all our buttons – surprising us by being unexpectedly demanding, complex, or inattentive to our feelings.

For some reason this reminded me a bit of Joseph. We don’t really get much of a picture of the character of Joseph in the nativity story before the moment when he has a very strange dream, and then all sorts of things begin to happen to him that might well have felt like being thrown out of a calm bucket of water into a large pond!

Perhaps Joseph had dreamed of a Messiah while in his ‘small bucket’, but in the ‘pond’ he got Jesus, which, putting it mildly, I think was an uncomfortable surprise and not quite what he was expecting.

Here’s a link to a wonderful nativity called ‘Unexpected Christmas’ created by a church in New Zealand that many of us enjoyed when we showed it at St James’ a few Christmases ago now! The catchphrase throughout it is, ‘they won’t be expecting that!’
Take a few minutes to enjoy it today, it’s joyful!