All Gold Doesn’t Glitter
We saw the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree twice.
The first time was in daylight—before the lights, before the sparkle, before the moment everyone notices. It looked thin. Uneven. Ordinary. My first thought was, “They’ve got a lot of work to do.”
The second time, it stopped people in their tracks.
Crowds gathered. Cameras came out. Everyone wanted to be near it, seen with it, photographed in front of it.
Hardly anyone was paying attention before the lights came on.
That contrast matters.
It took me to a moment in Scripture—Zacchaeus in a tree.
Zacchaeus wasn’t hiding because he didn’t want to be seen. He was hiding because the crowd couldn’t see him—not really. They only saw his title, his past, his reputation. So he climbed a tree just to get a glimpse of Jesus.
And Jesus stopped.
He didn’t look at the crowd.
He looked up.
Jesus saw what others couldn’t see yet.
Zacchaeus didn’t change because he was corrected.
He changed because Jesus saw him—called him by name and chose to spend time with him.
And as a result, everything shifted.
Zacchaeus didn’t stay in the tree.
He didn’t stay the same man.
Transformation followed vision—not the other way around.
That realization took me right back to the Rockefeller tree—before the lights, when it was still easy to underestimate what it would reveal.
And then I realized—this tension shows up every Christmas if we’re paying attention.
Not as the story of Christmas, but as a parallel worth noticing.
The world has always been drawn to glitter—power, status, spectacle. Yet at Christmas, God chose a very different path. No lights. No applause. No crowd. Just a child in a borrowed space, growing quietly, preparing for the work He was called to do.
The real gold wasn’t in the palace.
It was in the barn.
That’s the tension leaders must learn to navigate.
It’s easy to invest in what already shines.
It takes discernment to invest in what’s still becoming.
So as you move through this Christmas season—and as you look toward 2026—do what Jesus did: look up.
Lord, help me see what You see.
Who is worth investing in before the lights come on?
Because the people who ultimately change organizations, cities, and cultures are rarely the ones who glitter first.
They’re the ones someone chose to see—and develop—when no one else was looking.
