Some wise men came from the east following the star they had seen to do him homage. 

We go through life wondering where it is leading us. We look at the signs in our life hoping for direction. We search for happiness in our personal lives. We search for love in family. And we search for success in our work. Searching always, but perhaps never finding. In our weariness as we journey through life, we ponder the meaning of it all. 

Even at the height of our success, we remain unsatisfied. Something seem to be missing. What is it? More happiness, more love, more wealth? We search the universe for it but the signs in our life are often confusing. We look into the darkness of life and see a million stars illuminating the way, but which star do we follow? 

The star we need to follow is hidden from our view. Hidden because we are looking at the wrong places. Wise men look inward to follow this star.  

There is a track in our life marked out by events, both happy and sad, that occurred in our personal life. This star shines brightly on this path and we must know to follow it. This is the path our life has taken to lead us to where we are, and become who we are, today. We must look inward into our self to find it.  

If we have already found this path, there is a surefootedness on our next step as we continue to be guided by this star. If we have not, we will not find it by wandering aimlessly and desperately forward. We will find it by hitting the pause button of our increasingly fast paced, distracting lifestyle to go into the silence of our inner self to ponder on how we have made it to today. To do this, we need to travel backwards rather than forward.  

We need to relook at the events of our life, both major and minor, joyful and sorrowful. It could have been an acrimonious break up of a relationship, a devastating job loss, or just a chanced meeting with a long lost friend that brought us to this point in our life. Events are like dots on a puzzle, a pencil can link them to form the picture of our life. Much like the many stars in the sky, with knowing eyes we see the constellation. 

Every event in life lead us somewhere for a purpose. When we travel backwards along our timeline of events, we experience the meaning of the phrase, ‘blessing in disguise’. When we become wise that ‘unfortunate’ have become ‘fortunate’, adversity transformed into comfort, we search for the lucky star to thank.  

Often when pondering with gratitude we recognise that along our path in life, divine intervention took place when our life path changed from our desired course. We can dwell, or re-dwell, on an event long ago, buried deep in our inner self perhaps because of the hurt it caused, and see it now in the starlight. We see what was previously unseen: the hand of God guiding us in our most difficult moments. 

This is our Epiphany, to see and experience God in our personal life. With billions of people in the world, how can this Almighty, all powerful God of the entire universe be so personal to me? 

Once we experience this epiphany, we wise up to know that there are no coincidences in life, every event of our life eventually joining to form the beautiful constellation we can become at the end of our earthly journey.  

This star sheds a completely different light on life: it gives our journey in life its meaning. We discover the love of God through the infant child and through the gifts we bear of personal life, family and work, life meaning is found when we spread this love to the world of people we encounter in daily life.

 

 

The Epiphany of Our Lord