In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.) And everyone went to their own town to register. – Luke 2:1-3
Luke tells us that just before Jesus was born, Caesar Augustus declared a census (mostly to ensure that everyone was paying their taxes). This required all people to physically show up and register in the hometown they were from. For many, this meant extensive travel, paperwork, and long lines (unlike today where most people can simply register their households online with little inconvenience).
Isn’t it interesting that this is the setting God chose to get Joseph and Mary where He wanted them?
Rome thought it was doing what empires do – adding and subtracting numbers, managing towns and cities, and tightening its grip. Quirinius wasn’t thinking about Old Testament prophecy. Caesar had never heard of a man named Micah. They were counting people so they could collect taxes and control them better.
And right there, inside that Roman machinery, God was at work.
Mary and Joseph weren’t responding to a vision or a voice this time. No angel appears in Luke 2 telling them, “Go to Bethlehem.” They go because of a decree, because of bureaucracy. God uses the inconvenience, the interruption, and the hassle.
That’s worth thinking about today.
God didn’t remove the oppressive system. He moved through it. The Messiah doesn’t arrive by overthrowing Rome or His parents escaping a census, but by being born under it. Wrapped in cloth. Laid in a feeding trough. Off the radar of everyone who had power and influence and thought they mattered.
It’s almost uncomfortable how ordinary it all is!
Which is probably the point.
Most of our lives don’t feel like holy moments. They feel like obligations, deadlines, systems we didn’t choose, routines that wear us down. We’re just trying to comply, get through, do what’s required. And we assume that if God is at work, it must look more dramatic than this.
But Luke says otherwise.
While Rome was counting heads, God was keeping His word!
And He still does.
God often fulfills His promises not through spiritual highs, but through unremarkable faithfulness inside unremarkable circumstances. Through people showing up where they’re told to go. Through obedience that feels more practical than profound.
The question isn’t whether God is working in the grand moments.
The question is whether we trust that He’s working in the ordinary ones – especially the ones that can feel burdensome or meaningless.
Something for us to pause and consider today: How is God using the ordinary moments of your life to get you where He wants you?
Former Blackout Artist 