Just like Joseph

So this is an interesting thought. Are we so fearful that we rely on the stories in the Bible in ways that they were not intended?

I've heard people say this: "I feel like Job," or "I'm being pursued like David." I'm as guilty as anyone, I've gone through medical issues that left me questioning a lot of things just like Job and God spoke to me through the answers He gave Job.

Are we then to use these stories as templates for our lives?

Here's what got me thinking about this. I grew up in church. Since I was little I've been hearing about Noah and Abraham and Isaac and David, and well, that list can get quite lengthy. The point being, these people's stories were told to me in such a way that I could identify with them, and in many ways, heroize them. Then my pastor had to go and do a series through Genesis and blow up every idolization I had in these mere God followers. Jacob was kinda a real idiot. Abraham wasn't that great a guy. They all sinned. They all did things their own way at times. Even my favorite, Joseph, can be portrayed in a bad light (thanks Mark Z.).

Yet they're listed in the Hall of Faith. "By Faith," each one is listed as one who did something that God called them to.

Interesting how that sentence ends, though. These stories are less about these men and their circumstances and what they went through, but more about God's faithfulness. These men did things against what God told them to do many times. Yet God has never done anything against what He has said He will do. These men's stories are not there for us to go, "Man, I feel like I'm in a real Nineveh right now," but to say, "Whether I'm in Nineveh or the Promised Land, my God has called me to live this way and trust Him. I will do that." You may be in Sodom and Gomorrah and you think you're in Jerusalem. You may think you're in Egypt and God's got you in Jericho. His ways are not our ways, and we cannot know that, even as we look back, to see what was God and what was not. All we know are the truths that God will do what He has said He will do.

I say this because I think I have used these stories to cling to hope in a defined God instead of clinging to an undefined God. It's like saying, "I know you can speak through burning bushes and writing on the wall, that you heal the sick, part the sea, and a number of numerous other things. Please just do what you've done in the past so I can know you're there and trust you in this." He's called people to missions in far reaches of the globe, and we get fearful that He might send us to some other place. We should be more fearful that if we subject our lives to Him, he would not send us across the globe as we have seen done, but rather use your life to effect things in a new way which none of us has ever seen.

Embracing the unknown has never been my thing. I like control. I like to know where I'm going and how I'm getting there. But there is no template for your life. There is no master plan you can look at to answer where you're going and why. All you know is that He has a plan for you that will give you a hope and a future. He has promised this against Himself, the only infallible thing in the universe. We are called to trust in that and believe Him, and to do what He has spoken. Nothing much more scary than that, from a personal wants/risks perspective, but nothing better for your life than that.