"Snippets" from David
 

Someone Had to Be the First

In Joshua 24, Joshua gave his final address to Israel’s leaders.  He began his address in God’s voice with a striking declaration.  Israel’s earliest ancestors served idols.  There was a time when Israel’s ancestors did not know the God Israel followed.  He specifically mentioned Terah, Abraham’s father.

Someone has to be the beginning.  It is never popular to be the beginning.  Only in the distant future when people see the good fruit of your courage do they admire and praise your courage.  By then the courageous one has long been dead.  By then all his/her warts and flaws have been noted and examined numerous times.  By then his/her loneliness, questions, and grief long have been history.  By then no one ever considers the struggles surrounding his/her being the first.  By then, he/she is a hero and not a human.

Too often we think of great heroes in scripture as being so outstanding and strong that they are not human.  We place them high on a pedestal to collect dust while we occasionally admire them.  We make such “super saints” out of them that we likely miss their most valuable lessons to us.  The lessons: God works through (a) the small and (b) the weak.  What is achieved is not the result of the “bigness” of the person but the result of the “bigness” of God.  Divine grace exists as a part of God’s character because inevitable flaws created by the weakness of fear exists as a part of human character.

Abraham was an incredible man.  His faith in God exceeds the faith of many (if not all of us).  Yet, Abraham was a man who knew fear and made mistakes just as we do.  God was able to make great use of him because of his great faith, not his great achievements.  In the same manner, God’s use of us is dependent on our faith in Him, not our achievements.

There is so much to be wondered concerning Abraham.  Wonder how he felt the first time God spoke to him?  Wonder if he immediately understood what was happening?  Wonder when and where that moment occurred?  To deepen your sense of wonder, realize Abraham was no more accustomed to having God speak verbally to him than you are.  Yet, he had the faith to listen seriously rather than find a reason to dismiss the event and occasion.

Can you begin to imagine how much faith he had?  When God told him to leave his extended family and depend on the God who spoke to him, he did it.  When God told him that a nation would descend from him, he believed it—though he did not even have a son at that moment.  When God told him Canaan would belong to his descendants, he believed it.  Because there was an Abraham, there was a Moses, and a Samuel, and a David, and an Elijah, and a Daniel, and a Nehemiah. 

Yes, it was God’s intent to send a Jesus so all families of the earth could be blessed.  Yet, it had to begin with God finding a man who trusted Him.  God could do marvelous things through a man who trusted him.