The below is adapted from an essay written by Dr. James Allan Francis - and is being performed by Michael W. Smith on his 2012 Christmas Tour. We post Michael's version below due to the many requests we have received for this to be made public. We encourage you all to share this text and video however you choose.
ONE SOLITARY LIFE
Lest we not forget, He is still the reason for the season. Always will be.
Singing about a man who was a baby, who became a boy, who became a man.
Born in an obscure village. A Child of a peasant woman, He actually grew up in another village where He worked in a carpenter shop until He was thirty. And for three years He was an itinerant preacher.
He never owned a home,
never wrote a book.
He never held an office.
He never really had a family of his own.
Never went to college,
Never set foot in a big city.
He never traveled 200 miles from the place He was born.
He never did one of the things that usually accompanies greatness.
He had no credentials but Himself.
While still a young man, the tide of popular opinion turned against Him. His friends ran away. Even one of His best friends denied him.
He was turned over to His enemies.
He went through the mockery of a trial.
He was nailed upon a cross between two thieves.
While He was dying, His executioners gambled for the only piece of property He had on this earth and that was His coat. And when He was dead, He was laid in a borrowed grave through the pity of a friend.
Nineteen long centuries have come and gone.
Today, He is still the centerpiece of the human race, and leader of the column of progress. I’m far within the mark when I say that:
all of the armies that were ever marched,
all of the navies that were ever built,
all of the parliaments that ever sat, and
all of the kings that ever reigned,
all put together, have not affected the lives on this earth as powerfully as has that ONE SOLITARY LIFE.
