A few days before Christmas, and I'm thinking about Nathanael.
You know the guy. Philip runs up to him, breathless with excitement: "We found Him! The one Moses wrote about—Jesus of Nazareth!"
And Nathanael's response?
"Nazareth? Can anything good come from there?" (John 1:46)
I get it, Nathanael. I really do.
Here's the thing: while the shepherds found the baby in Bethlehem, Jesus would forever be known as "Jesus of Nazareth"—the backwater town where he was raised and where the whole story began when an angel appeared to a young girl nobody expected God to choose.
Nazareth was a nothing town. No prestige. No pedigree. No reason to expect greatness. It was the kind of place people drove through on their way to somewhere that mattered.
It was the kind of place you couldn't wait to leave.
I know the feeling. I was so ready to flee South Central Pennsylvania the minute I turned 17. I had big plans. Important places to be. I wasn't about to let my small-town roots define me or limit my future.
And then, 28 years later, God called me back.
Funny how that works.
How often do we look at where we came from as a limiting factor?
We spend years running from our Nazareth—our humble beginnings, our unglamorous hometown, our "nothing special" origin story—only to discover that God had purpose planted in that soil all along.
And how often do we look at others through that same lens?
Can anything good come from THERE?
- From that department?
- From that generation?
- From someone without the degree?
- From the quiet one in the back of the room?
- From the person everyone else has written off?
Here's what I've learned after decades in leadership development: the most transformational leaders rarely come from the expected places.
They come from Nazareth.
They come from hard backgrounds, odd career paths, and circumstances that should have disqualified them. They're the overlooked. The underestimated. The ones nobody saw coming.
And that might be you this Christmas.
Maybe you're leading from a place that feels small and insignificant. Maybe you've been passed over because you don't fit the mold. Maybe someone has looked at your background and asked, "Can anything good come from there?"
Let me remind you: the Savior of the world came from Nazareth.
Your "Nazareth" isn't a limitation. It's part of your story.
Lead from where you are. Lead anyway.
Philip's response to Nathanael's skepticism? Just two words: "Come and see."
That's your job too. Stop defending your background. Stop apologizing for your unconventional path. Just do the work, love the people, and let them come and see.
Merry Christmas week, friends.
Tracey
P.S. If you missed last week's The Donkey Did the Work, it's still making the rounds. We all needed permission to carry what we were made to carry.
