Just One Obedience
God always begins with the end in mind.
A friend of mine used to say that all the time and how comforting that is for all of us when it comes to trusting Him with the final outcome of our lives.
There have been seasons in Rita’s and my lives when none of the jigsaw puzzle pieces seemed to fit anywhere. Nothing made sense. Nothing looked like our lives had any eternal purpose. And, to be honest, even though we see things a little more clearly now, that’s mostly because of the benefit of hindsight.
How reassuring to know that, as we actively trust the Lord with our lives and our families, He is working the maze of our thousands of decisions, choices, the influence of others on our lives and even our mistakes to move us all to His ultimate goal…that Jesus be formed and glorified in us.
One little verse in my Gospels reading got me to thinking about all of the above this morning. In fact, I didn’t get past verse 1.
It’s the kind of passage I usually skim read.
The genealogies.
So and so was the father of…and so on, sometimes for pages, and often leaving me thinking, so what?
But this morning I read, “This is a record of the ancestors of Jesus the Messiah, a descendant of David and of Abraham” (Matthew 1:1 NLT).
I guess I have always thought about Jesus being a descendant of David, but this morning it hit me that God was working His plans and purposes for Jesus’ birth, death and resurrection all the way back through all the details of Abram’s life, when he was first called to leave Ur, 2000 years before Christ was born.
Think of all the human decisions, actions, reactions and responses to circumstances of just those in the lineage between Abram and Jesus…and through every detail, good and bad, God was working His determined purpose for the redemption of humanity through His only Son.
Listen, you can trust Him!
He began with the end in mind regarding your life!
All the more reason to draw near to Him every day, to seek His guidance every day, to listen for His voice every day…and ultimately to worship Him with abandonment when you can see what He is doing and when you can’t!