“For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through the endurance taught in the Scriptures and the encouragement they provide we might have hope.” Romans 15:4 NIV
I read the Scripture from Romans early Sunday morning before church. It caught my eye because my last post had been about letting our history become His Story in the New Year. I thought of history as being wiped away to clear the slate for a new year. Then I went to church and heard “The promise of salvation doesn’t always look like what we expect or want.” It wasn’t a sermon about wiping away the unexpected and unwanted interruptions that happen in every life. It was a message of recognizing the promised presence of Jesus with you in the midst of the worst news or circumstances.
Later that day I read this from Henri Nouwen’s Creative Ministry: “We are…invited to look at our history as the sequence of events that brought us to where we are now and that help us to understand what it means to be here at this moment in this world.”
History has impact on our present, our future and our imperfection. The ultimate unwanted and unexpected interruption of the perfection God created happened way back in Genesis 3. Even in the consequences that followed that sin I see God’s hope for history in His unexpected provision for those first two people. “The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them.” There are many other examples of people in the Bible who endured the consequences of their own imperfection but found strength to hope in God’s Word.
We’ve just completed the celebration of God’s ultimate solution for our imperfection, the birth of Jesus Christ. He’s our evidence of “everything that was written in the past.” The details of the promise of our salvation won’t always work out as we expect or want. We’re still dealing with the consequences of imperfection but we can trust and depend on God’s perfect solution “so that through the endurance taught in the Scriptures and the encouragement they provide we might have hope.” Faith in Jesus is evidence of God’s hope for our life and that makes it a part of His Story.
Read and Ponder - Faith in Daily Life 