Clicking the Green Arrow
As a university student, I made a practice of closing my eyes and imagining the enormous contribution I would one day make to saving the world. Once, when I still knew how to handle a paintbrush, watercolors and I even made the dream take shape on paper.
The image is a little faded now, the thick textured paper gone and the memory of it no better than fuzzy.
But I do remember this: that picture did not leave room for thing I do now.
It did not consider that one day I might be clicking the green arrow.
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If I Talked to God Like that When I Was Your Age…
Have you been around long enough to know that Judges is just not safe for me?
Tiptoe as I might, I will one day trip over my own feet and spend some time stretched out with my face in the dirt trying to sort out why on earth God worked like He did.
Or works like He does.
Or is Who He is.
If this is new to you, welcome.
Every now and again, it’s what we do here.
It’s time.
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Who Cares What We Think?
Laban and Bethuel answered, “This is from the LORD; we can say nothing to you one way or the other.” (Genesis 24:50)
What a way to approach God’s will and direction.
Laban and Bethuel. A couple of God-fearing parents. They were asked in the 24th chapter of Genesis to let this stranger who had come to their home, a servant of Abraham, take their daughter Rebekah with him back to marry Abraham’s son Isaac. When they were asked, and when they knew it was God’s doing, they responded as you can see in verse 50, “This is from the Lord; we can say nothing to you one way or the other.”
If you look at the background of this story, Abraham wants a wife for his son Isaac. He wants him to have a wife from his own people, the country he left at God’s direction so many years ago. He doesn’t want his son to take a wife from among the Canaanites. And he doesn’t want his son to go back to his homeland. He wants him to stay put. Abraham asks his servant to swear that he will find a wife for Isaac and meet these two conditions.
The servant goes back to the town of Nahor and God leads him to the woman. The right woman. The woman He has chosen for Isaac. The woman and her family show Abraham’s servant some exceptional Nahorian hospitality.
And then he pops the question. He does Isaac’s romancing for him. He tells them, I prayed that God would lead me to this woman, and before I even had finished praying, he says, Rebekah came out to the well to draw water. Before I was even done praying, I tell you! And I knew instantly that she was the one. She is the one. Will you permit her to come back with me and be the wife of my master’s son?
And how do they answer? Who cares what we think? they say. Our opinion is not what matters. This is from the Lord. This is God’s thing. He is saying Yes. We can say nothing one way or the other.
Laban and Bethuel feared God. They took Him at His word. They knew that when it came to whose opinion mattered, it wasn’t theirs. Of course she will go with you. God has said Yes to this.
That’s not to say that Laban and Bethuel had no choice. They had a choice. They could have said No. They could have said Yes. They could have said Let us sleep on it. They could have said anything they wanted.
They didn’t.
They had a healthy respect for the mind of God. They had a firm grasp on the goodness of God. And they had a deep trust in the faithfulness of God.
They knew that if this is what God said to do, this is what they would do. The importance with which they viewed their own thoughts in the matter was hugely diminished by the magnitude of how they viewed God’s thoughts.
Who cares what I think? I want to be gripped and moved by what God thinks.
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Out of Egypt: God Is in the Details
“But take this staff in your hand so you can perform miraculous signs with it.” (Exodus 4:17)
One more look at Exodus for now, and very briefly at that…
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Now that Moses has at last relented, he prepares to meet his brother Aaron and go back to Egypt. Before his amazing encounter with God at the bush is over, however, God tells him one more thing.
But take this staff in your hand so you can perform miraculous signs with it.
Moses, just one more thing before you go. Don’t forget your staff.
Don’t forget your staff. You’ll need it.
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Think God is all big-picture? That He’s not in the details?
Think again.
Yes, God is big-picture.
He gets what’s important and doesn’t want us to sweat the small stuff. Not to worry.
He wants us to see the vision, get the wider view.
But He’s also all about the details. The finer points. The little things that matter.
He takes interest in the little things we might think He just overlooks. He doesn’t overlook our little things. He cares deeply about them.
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He’s big-picture, sure.
But oh, the little details matter to Him.
Because we matter to Him.
Don’t forget your staff.
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More Dumb Ideas than the Stars in the Sky
Then Sarai said to Abram, ‘You are responsible for the wrong I am suffering. I put my servant in your arms, and now that she knows she is pregnant, she despises me. May the LORD judge between you and me.’ ’Your servant is in your hands,’ Abram said. ‘Do with her whatever you think best.’ Then Sarai mistreated Hagar; so she fled from her.” (Genesis 16:5-6)
I think we like to look at Bible characters as consummate heroes and villains. There are no ordinary folks for us in Scripture. They all appear larger than life.
And when we look at our heroes, we see all their extraordinary feats and sometimes overlook their humanness.
Moses led God’s people out of oppression and slavery in Egypt, parted the Red Sea, got water out of rocks, and saw God’s glory on Sinai. (After he killed a guy and buried him in the sand.)
Jacob was the father of the twelve tribes of Israel, one who physically wrestled with God. (But he lied to his dad to swipe the birthright from his brother.)
Joseph remained faithful to God despite being sold into slavery by his own brothers and imprisoned on false charges, ultimately becoming a most powerful figure in Egypt and saving his people during the famine. (And my, did he have a bit of an ego problem at the start.)
David, giant slayer and man after God’s own heart, was the finest king Israel knew and the author of heart rending Psalms. (Somewhere along the way he seduced another man’s wife and then killed him to cover it up.)
Peter stepped out of the boat to walk on water and meet Jesus on the sea in a show of unmatched faith among the disciples. (And then denied even knowing Jesus, three times yet.)
These guys were really just like us.
They loved God. They served God. They gave Him everything they had.
And boy, at times, did they ever mess it up.
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Look at Abram, later called Abraham. We got a little peek at him yesterday. This is the same Abraham who really did become the great nation God promised. The same Abraham who, in complete dependent obedience to God actually laid his son on the altar and was prepared to sacrifice him.
Abraham is one of our heroes.
But he messed it up just like us.
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Go back to yesterday’s story for a minute. We were looking at the predicament he and Sarai (his wife) got themselves into with Hagar the maidservant. Remember that God had promised to make Abram into a great nation — more descendants than the stars in the sky. And when they grew impatient waiting for God to come through, Sarai told him to sleep with her servant.
After all, if he was to have all these descendants, somebody had better be getting pregnant.
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There’s a lot wrong with this story, and I think I have at least one more day coming out of it. But look at this part today. Look how everybody handles it when this awful plan starts to play out.
When Hagar the maidservant does become pregnant, she begins to despise Sarai. It becomes a pretty hateful relationship. Now, knowing Sarai, I think it’s a safe bet that there was something else going on to fuel this hatred than the text lets on. But that’s just a hunch.
Sarai goes back to Abram and lays it at his feet: You are responsible for the wrong I am suffering.
Where have we heard this before?
The woman you put here with me — she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.
The serpent deceived me, and I ate.
Sarai does the same thing. Abram, you did it. You are responsible. I put my servant in your arms, and now that she knows she is pregant, she despises me.
Sarai essentially says, I told you to sleep with her, and you did. And now she’s pregnant, which was the whole point. But it’s not working out. Now she hates me.
This is all your fault.
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Everything goes exactly according to plan. Sarai’s plan.
They get the exact intended result. Hagar is pregnant with Abram’s child. But somehow, they forgot about how this might impact Hagar. They forgot about some big picture implications of this dumb idea. They forgot that God had His own plan and they just went around it.
And now, when that part goes wrong, and makes it difficult for Sarai, it’s somebody else’s fault.
How very much like me. I circumvent God’s plan and it blows up in my face. I’m always shocked when that happens. And I need somebody else to blame.
Even though this was totally my idea, I’ll blame the guy who carried out my plan.
Sounds reasonable enough.
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And then Abram goes along with it, again. He doesn’t acknowledge that they blew it. He doesn’t step up to take responsibility for their choice. He doesn’t call Sarai out like he should have in the first place. He just tells her, Your servant is in your hands. Do what you think best.
Abram, come on. What Sarai “thinks best” doesn’t seem to be best. She thought this plan was a good idea from the get-go. She cooked it up. Do what you think best?
He washes his hands of the whole thing. Sarai’s idea, Sarai’s maid.
She’ll have to fix it.
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Responsibility. Stepping up.
We don’t like to do it.
We’re all going to blow it. Sometimes all day long. But what do I do with that? Do I go back to God and acknowledge it, do I agree with Him that I’ve messed it up? Do I go to the people affected, the people I hurt, and ask for forgiveness, try to make it right?
Or do I, even in the face of absolutely contrary facts that everybody else in the world but me can see, find a way to put it on somebody else?
The great thing is that when Hagar has run off and encounters the angel of the Lord in the desert, the angel instructs her to be the grown up, even if Sarai and Abram won’t. While Hagar may be handling this all wrong, at the end of the day she’s the one that’s been wronged. And yet the angel tells her to go back, and submit to Sarai.
Be responsible. Step up, do the right thing.
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You are responsible for the wrong I am suffering.
Your servant is in your hands.
The woman you put here with me — she gave me some fruit.
The serpent deceived me.
I could add a few of my own.
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