Getting on-board...

We have been looking at some very ancient texts as we consider the lives of Abraham, Jacob and today Joseph.  Looking back into the ‘family closet’ uncovers many surprises, some of which might be a challenge or even shocking.One thing that sets the biblical story apart from other comparative ancient texts is their honesty.  Never would Assyrian, Egyptian or Babylonian texts tell on the king. The story was always sanitised and glorious,  the king beyond reproach and perfect in his mastery of the nations.In contrast, the Hebrew fathers are a bunch of bumbling insignificants. They seem to wander aimlessly, have horrendously dysfunctional families, lurch from poverty to plenty and back again, are often self-seeking, capricious and mean.  And if things do work out it doesn’t have much to do with the character of the person in question.  Rather, the person is chosen by God to be an infinitesimally small but essential part in a much, much larger redemptive puzzle.I am so glad I have been introduced to and taught the Hebrew scriptures rather than these other sanitised ancient texts.  J. B. Phillips said that the bible has “the ring of truth”.  When you hear something too good to be true, it probably is!  The patriarchal stories of Abraham, Jacob and Joseph are just too messy to not bear the marks of authenticity.The patriarchal stories could be you or me - you or me, swept up into a plan so much larger than anything we could ever imagine - a plan undaunted by disaster, grief, or mess.  Someone said at a staff meeting recently, of a great suffering they had witnessed, “It was awful and beautiful at the same time!”  Too grand to make sense of, too grand to draw clear lines between logical conclusions, too grand to be superintended by any human hand, too grand to subject to pathetic human explanation - too grand and too awful at the same time.I find I like the uncertainty of life more and more as I get older.  I clearly recall not liking uncertainty at all as a younger person.  My God had to be well ensconced in my box.  I can’t read the bible safely any more.  As Mr Beaver says to the Pevensy children of the lion Aslan in The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe,  “But, is he safe?”  “Of course he isn’t safe,”  says Mr Beaver, “but he is good!”He is good.  That’s what I need to know.  He is good and his ways are beyond reproach.  As I look at  God’s dealings with Abraham and Jacob I see a promise-making and a promise-keeping God - a God who renders the moment we most fear as nothing in the glory of his love and goodness and promise; whose promises sweep up our fussing over the here and now; whose adventure has barely even begun in us; who enters into my life and circumstance absolutely in Jesus’ life. He is a God who totally gets us and totally saves us, if we will let him.I talk to lots of people each week.  Many of them don’t feel heard, respected, understood or appreciated.  Despite the privileges of our lives we need more.  We need to know that we are known and part of something bigger than this: that as we employ and give and turn up and bless and chauffer and cook and plan and visit it all adds up to something  - something that matters lastingly and that means something. God’s promise is that it does.  Those patriarchs believed that God had to do what he promised.  They held him to his promise.  They “believed God”. That’s all they had.  And from beginning to end God has kept his ultimate promise to save his people - mayhem all the way, but here we are still.How do I get on board with truly believing God for his heart and eyes in my situation?  I start with the despairing dad in Mark chapter 9 who cried out,  “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!”  When he shows me, it is like I see with new eyes - eyes only he can give.BlessingsMalcolm