In the last blog I mentioned a number of real people in the bible who went through some really ridiculous situations. These stories have been used for thousands of years to encourage, challenge, edify numbers of people. They tell of people who God used mightily to reveal His glory. We often hold onto the stories of immense courage or faith and God’s provision through the bleakest of conditions. However, how often do we think of the in-between stages of everyday life that they went through? (yup, my dad jumped the gun on me…I guess I don’t fall too far from the tree?)
These people lived some pretty interesting lives…and in some ways very uninteresting lives. David tended sheep for years. It’s funny to think that the skills he learned to kill goliath and even the animals attacking the sheep most likely also resided in the fact that he had a pretty lonely job and it was something to do.
Noah…who knows what he did for 600 years before the flood, or even really the 350 years afterwards. I can’t imagine the frustration and discouragement of living in a world where God grieved for His creation so much that he was the only one who found favor in His sight…Even then, how much of that can we really credit to Noah? Either way, he had to have taken a ridiculous amount of abuse for building an ark, and yet somehow I can’t help but think he would have liked some more company after the flood. Seeing God start over must have been incredible and yet lonely and overwhelming. It’s no wonder that he got himself drunk. Even still, 350 years and like 14 generations of descendents later, he passed away….what stories he must have had!!! I wonder how many people believed him and how many people just thought he was a senile old man?
Sampson had a bit of an anger problem. He also tended to be a bit of a prankster. Somehow though in between crazy stories of strength unleashed on the Phillistines you’ll find that he judged Israel for 20 years. I never used to think of him as a judge but its true. We know that he didn’t kill many people if any during this time period and I half wonder if he legitimately worked on his anger out of guilt for some of the lives he took when he was a youth. There was something that wasn’t completely dealt with inside of him and he tried to numb the truth with prostitutes on a couple occasions.
Jonah had much more faith in God than I do currently. In fact I’d even say that he knew some aspects of God more than I may ever know. After going into an enemy nation and seeing it turn completely to God instead of treating him brutally before killing him like they would normally do, he was upset and basically told God “Hey, I knew you were going to do this…that’s why I would have rather died than obeyed you initially.” Something happened when he was younger to create a bitterness and an anger towards the Ninevites. I have my guesses but he wasn’t your refined christian with his ducks in a row.
SO…what’s the point?
There have been times in my life where I have dreamed of living a life that resembles the craziness found in the bible. There is something inside of me that comes alive thinking of the possibilities of the greatness of God and His interaction with men. Well, all of that is still possible today and there are people daily who are living stories too crazy for most to believe. I’m reminded me of something that Mother Theresa once said about how “there are no great things; just a series of small things” (or something like that.) The truth is that all of the people in the bible lived life. Some of it was mundane. Some of it was crazy. What remained consistent is that God found a way to put people through trials, testings and adversity through many years to develop obedience, consistency and faithfulness. I’ll get to that though in my final “stories blog” coming tomorrow…but first I want to share a paraphrased story I heard today from Seth Barnes.
Ulysses Grant evidently was a drunkard who had a number of defectors who didn’t exactly like the way he did things. One of them complained about it to Abe Lincoln who responded “The man wins battles. I should get him a case of his favorite brandy…” As Andrew Shearman says, “Style is negotiable for a man of substance.”
Substance is found in the details of the small things…
Fire reveals substance. It reveals blemishes as things once covered over as wax melt and you’re left with the core, blemishes and all. Are you willing to go through the fire? How much of a choice do you think you have in going through it or not?
What does your story look like? Is it the story you look forward to people reading for eternity? Today is the only day you can do something about that. Will you? Even if it means obscurity and testing for years? I mean it DID take Mose 80 years before he led the Israelites out of Egypt and even then he wasn’t exactly filled with confidence…
Are you willing to wait on His timing?
