Story

Readings for today: 1 Chronicles 1-2, Psalms 43-44

Many years ago, a friend of mine introduced me to the “Three Story” method of evangelism. It’s simple and natural and easy to use. Basically, you start by asking another person about their story. By showing genuine curiosity in who they are and how they got here and where they feel they are headed, you get to learn all about another human being. Another creature made in God’s own image. You get to hear all about their hopes and dreams and, depending on their level of vulnerability, their heartbreaks and pain. It’s incredible what people will tell you if you are willing to listen. After sharing their story, the most natural thing for them to do is ask you about your story. I don’t know about you but I can’t share my story without sharing about the day Jesus Christ saved me. He literally changed the course of my life. And this brings us into the final story…God’s story…which is the story all of us are wrapped up in on some level. I have to tell you I’ve probably had thousands of conversations about Jesus over the years. I’ve not had one negative reaction when I used this method to tell His story. It doesn’t mean everyone gave their life to Jesus. Far from it. But it does get people thinking in new ways about the story of their life and what role God may have to play in it.

I thought about this method when I read through the genealogies at the beginning of Chronicles. It’s easy to brush past all these names. They don’t mean much to us because we don’t feel any kind of connection to them. They are names of people and places we have never encountered which is why they feel so distant to us. Irrelevant to our lives. But what if we engaged the reading using the “Three Story” method I shared above? What if this is Israel telling us her story? Telling us how she got to where she is today? Telling us about all the important people and places in her life? What if instead of just reading through the chapters, we envisioned a person telling us all about their family tree and what it meant to them? Would that change how we received it? I think it would. Now imagine that same person asking us about our family tree. What would we share? Could we point to names and places where our family had been? Do we see all the different connections that brought us to where we are today? Now think about God’s story. Where’s His hand in all of this? Where do we see Him at work in the lives of those who are listed? What story is God working out in and through His people for the world?

Readings for tomorrow: Psalms 49, 84, 85, 87

Connections

Readings for today: Ezra 1-3, Psalms 45

To be honest, I usually just breeze through the genealogies of the Bible. I don’t spend a ton of time on them. Especially the ones located this deep in the Old Testament. Most of the names are unfamiliar. I don’t feel any connection to them. I don’t know who they are all related to necessarily. It’s hard to draw the family tree here. But today I found myself lingering over the names. Reflecting on names like Parosh and Bani and Hashum and others and wondering who they were and why they bore mention in this list. Clearly they were names of note to the ancient Israelites. People readily recognized by those who would hear these words from Ezra or read this book. Their descendants would return to the land and reclaim their inheritance so it must have been obvious to all which tribe they came from.

Perhaps it’s because I just spent a day burying my father in a small town cemetery in western Nebraska where we are related to many of the people buried there? As I walked among the graves with my children and shared how we were related to the Reslers, Arenz’s, Grossbach’s, and Martins, my children wanted to hear all the stories. They wanted to know what I know about these men and women. Sadly I don’t know much. I don’t know why my great-grandfather died in his fifties. I don’t know why my step grandfather’s first wife died early. I don’t know Fred and Mia other than they are related to the original Dr. H.H. Grossbach. But others I do know. I know Dr. Grossbach headed west from Indiana under the Homestead Act because the community needed a medical doctor. I know Greta, his daughter, played a significant role in the community, building two of the family homes in the town. I know my dad was named after Dorsey Herman. I know I am named after my dad’s brother, Douglas Craig, who tragically died in a drunk driving accident when he was 19. As we stood there, we could all feel our connection to the place. The ground was sacred. It was home in a way that our house never will be. Generations of my family lived and died in this particular area which means our ties run deep.

Now imagine you are an ancient Israelite. Your ties to the Promised Land go all the way back to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and his sons. Your history has been carefully preserved down through the centuries. You’ve resisted intermarriage in order to keep your family line pure as God demanded. Though you’ve been exiled and your home destroyed, you maintained your faith. Now God has raised up Cyrus. A new decree is issued. You can return! You can go home! You can return to your own town! Can you imagine the excitement and the joy? So a census is needed. People need to be reminded of their connections one to another. And as the rolls are read, you hear the names of your ancestors. Those who have gone before you. Those who worked so hard to give you this opportunity.

This is why genealogies are important. They remind us that we are not islands unto ourselves. For good or for ill, we stand on the shoulders of those who came before us. In the best of situations, their hard work provides us with all kinds of opportunity and wealth and privilege. In the worst of situations, their failures create all kinds of obstacles we now have to overcome. Most of our families are a mix of the two of course. Now think about yourself. What kind of legacy will you leave after you die. When your children and your children’s children are visiting your grave, what stories will they share?

Readings for tomorrow: Ezra 4-7, Psalms 46

Biblical Genogram

Readings for today: 1 Chronicles 1-2, Psalms 43-44

The genogram is a tool that has become very popular in recent years. Invented by American psychiatrist Murray Bowen in the 1970’s, it is designed to illuminate hereditary family patterns that are passed down to each generation. Those patterns can be positive or negative but they are often extremely helpful for individual who want to grow in their self-understanding as to why they think and feel and react the way they do. Families are emotional systems in which each individual plays a particular role. The more one understands the role they are called to play and why they are called to play it, the more they can help the system move towards greater health and wholeness. The less one understands about the role they play, the more apt they are to perpetuate it.

One can only imagine what might be revealed if we did a genogram of the first two chapters of 1 Chronicles! If you’ve been tracking with us through the Bible in a Year this year, you know the stories. They’re not always pretty. It’s one of the things I appreciate most about the Bible. It never seeks to white-wash any of the Old Testament saints. Their sinful tendencies are put on full display for all to see. Deception. Abuse. Violence. Suffering. Pain. Abandonment. Polygamy. Incest. It’s all right there in the family tree. And yet God remains faithful. He chooses this particular people, despite their deep brokenness, to be His very own. They will bear the weight His glory. They will be entrusted with His Word. They will inherit the promises. They will be His covenant partners as He seeks to make Himself known to the world.

The same holds true for us today. I love how the Apostle Paul describes it in 2 Corinthians 4:7, “For we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.” We are all jars of clay. Cracked and chipped in many places by the things we’ve experienced in this world. Into our hearts, God has deposited the treasure of the gospel and His desire is to make Himself known in us and through us despite our deep brokenness. It is through the cracks of our lives that God’s light shines. It is in the mess of our lives that God meets us. He is not afraid to call His own. He is not afraid to adopt us as His sons and daughters. He is not afraid to make us covenant partners in the great work He is doing to reach the world with His message of grace, hope, and love.

All of us are products of the family system that produced us. All of us are shaped - good, bad, and otherwise - by the interactions we have with the generations who’ve gone before us and the ones who come after us. All of us have a role to play in our family system and the more we allow Christ to transform us in that role, the more we can leverage it to help our family system become a greater reflection of the gospel.

Readings for tomorrow: Psalms 49, 84-85, 87