EMPOWERING LIVES WITH PURPOSE:
If you stop and think about it, the Bible is actually one long book of story after story of people who royally screwed up. The crazy thing is—the Lord didn’t feel the need to keep it under wraps. He wasn’t ashamed to reveal the raw stuff. Like, the harsh, embarrassing details.
If I were going to write my family’s story, I’d probably try to make them look a little more likable than Moses, the Tablet Smashing Murderer. Woulda probably left that bit out.
Yet, God didn’t label them Adam the defensive rebel, Jacob the jerk deceiver, Abe the sex trafficker, Sarah the scoffer, Rahab the whore, David the manic depressive or Peter the liar and betrayer.
Neither did God feel any need to present His people as pristine examples of righteousness (okay, Daniel kept it pretty clean—at least what he mentioned—and a couple others). In His mind, that was not what qualified them to be influencers.
He chose them because they were all utterly flawed humans…who exemplified His grace, mercy and redemption. People who stopped dead and cried out to Him. Who reached up in the middle of their pain, their chaos, their fear; in the midst of overwhelming circumstances. Who waved the white flag and came over to His side.
“Then God…”
The history is colorful, textured and varied—but follows one constant. “Ain’t no mountain high enough, ain’t no valley low enough…to keep Him from getting to you.”
In short, the Bible is a book about your Father’s relentless heart to reveal Himself to you…to rescue you, fill you and use you. To define you by the work of His grace you allow Him to accomplish in you. To reveal Himself to others through your story.
To walk with you into the Great Adventure He has prepared ahead. To speak with you “as a man speaks with his friend.” To pick you back up, too, when you stumble, even fall. To see you through each day of your journey…and all the way home.
-Lynn Dicken Cerullo