The God Who Interferes

The God Who Interferes

Magi

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Matthew 2:1-12

Devotional

The Magi’s story doesn’t begin with spiritual hunger. It begins with interruption. They’re going about the ordinary business of their lives when something unexpected breaks into their sky. Matthew is intentional when he writes, “We saw his star when it rose” (Matt 2:2), because that single line tells us who moved first. God did. The Magi didn’t engineer their awakening. They were confronted by it.

And this is the steady rhythm of Scripture. God calls Abraham long before Abraham knows His God-given name. God appears to Moses while Moses is hiding from his past. God stops Paul on a road he never planned to leave. Over and over, God initiates and we respond. And the Magi fit squarely inside that pattern. Their journey begins not with spiritual insight, but with divine interference, revelation.

But this is precisely the kind of God we often resist. We prefer a God who arrives when invited, not One who intrudes without permission. We want His comfort, not His command. Often, we crave His reassurance, not His rule. Yet the true God will not settle for that arrangement. He knows the small kingdoms we build for ourselves can’t hold the weight of our lives, and so He interrupts us. It isn’t to shame us, but to rescue us from thrones too fragile to save us.

This is why the Magi’s response matters. They move not because they understand everything, but because they trust the little light they have. Their journey isn’t heroic. It’s obedient. And obedience is what faith always looks like when God initiates. A single star is enough to draw them out of their routines and into a story immeasurably larger than their own.

I’ve come to think that many of us misread the unsettled places in our lives. We mistake the tensions that refuse to quiet down, the questions that remain unresolved, and the disruptions we cannot control. We often assume these things mean something is failing. Yet these very places may be the clearest signs that God is near. What we call interruption, God may call invitation. What we name instability, He may name mercy.

God’s interference is never random. It is the loving insistence of a King who refuses to leave us in a kingdom that cannot carry the fullness of His story.

Reflection Questions

1.     Where has God been interfering with your plans or your comfort, and how have you been excusing your resistance instead of naming it as disobedience?

2.     What small, clear step of obedience have you delayed because you keep telling yourself you need more clarity, more stability, or more control before you move?

3.     Which false kingdom, maybe your reputation, your schedule, your preferences, your independence, would have to fall for you to follow the light God has already given you?

Advent Prayer

Father,

You are the One who moves first. You interrupt long before we ever think to seek You. So, I ask You to do that again in my life. Break through every quiet lie I tell myself about being in control. Disrupt every place where I have settled for safety instead of surrender. Do not let me mistake Your interference for inconvenience. Let me see it for what it is: mercy that refuses to leave me where I am.

Open my eyes to the stars You have already risen in my sky, the small but unmistakable signs of Your leading. Keep me from waiting for perfect understanding before I obey. Make me willing to move on the little light I have, because You are the God who gives more light to those who walk in the light they’ve been given.

Please tear down every throne I’ve built for myself, even the ones I’ve decorated with Christian language. Expose the places where I pretend to trust You but still insist on keeping the final say. Rescue me from the kingdom of my own making, because I cannot save myself from myself. Only You can.

And as You interrupt me, Lord, give me a heart that calls it grace. Make me quick to bow, quick to yield, quick to take the next step even when I tremble. Let obedience not be a burden but a joy. Let surrender not feel like loss but freedom. Let every disruption become the doorway into deeper dependence on You.

Do whatever You must to draw me out of small stories and into Yours. Do not stop interfering until Christ is my only King. And give me joy, not after I obey, but as I obey, because You are near.

In Jesus’ name, the One who came to disrupt every false rule in my heart, Amen.