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Nov 16, 2024 06:00am

Family

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My precious grandmother is 93. While visiting with her one day, she pulled out a stack of papers. She shared with me the names of many of my descendants. She had stories to go along with many of the names. There were poets, farmers, teachers, cosmetologists, preachers, and doctors to name a few of the occupations she listed. There were stories of scholarships earned and trials overcome, stories of strength and beauty, tales of selflessness and compassion, stories of how my family was used to bring others to Christ and to honor Christ in the midst of unimaginable circumstances. I was so proud to get to be one of the names listed among such a group, even carrying on the name of a couple of them.

Some of my descendants left such an amazing legacy, I felt the need to go out and do something great to earn my place on their list. Some of them made me feel a little more normal. They were all humans, whether they left an amazing legacy or led more “normal” lives like mine. God used them to bring about His will, because of who He is, not who they were. I am reminded that the only perfect person to ever walk this earth was Jesus. Other than that, no matter how highly the person might be regarded, we all sin and fall short of the glory of God. (Romans 3:23-24)

There are two places in the Bible where the lineage of Jesus is listed-Matthew 1 and Luke 3. These two lists are the same until they get to David. From there, the lists do not match up exactly. This made me quite curious. Upon further review, I discovered this was not in error. The list from Matthew is a list of the descendants of Joseph, Jesus’ earthly father, and Luke is a list of Mary’s lineage. Either way, Jesus was a descendant of David. I thought that made the two lists even more exciting. God purposed every person on the list to line up for Mary and Joseph both to be descendants of David.

As I scanned the list of names, there were so many that stood out for living out their faith. Noah was obedient in the face of ridicule, dedicating much of his life to building an ark when it made no sense to anyone else. Boaz took Ruth as his wife, honoring God by becoming her kinsman redeemer. David put his faith in God and was able to take down Goliath with a stone, because he was obedient to God’s call. He was later hunted by King Saul and opted not to kill him when he had the chance, because he wanted to be obedient to God’s instructions to honor the king God put in place.

I also noticed that some of the names included in these lineages were different than I might have expected. Among the 12 sons of Jacob (The tribes of Israel), I kind of expected Joseph to be listed. He was the firstborn son of the wife Jacob loved so much, the one who was sold into slavery by his brothers, the one who was wrongly imprisoned , but honored God anyway. God used him for many things, but he was not the brother listed among the genealogy of the Messiah.

Judah (the 4th born of Leah-the wife he was tricked into marrying) was chosen to be on this list. In fact, when Jacob was giving his children blessings, he promised Judah that his brothers would praise him and named him the “lion’s cub” ascribing his descendants to be the “root of David” leading to the Messiah (The Lion of the Tribe of Judah).

When you take time to look into the lives of the men listed in the genealogy (from either passage), you will find very human characteristics evident, even in the lives of those whose faith is so well-known. Some very interesting stories are found in most of their lives. These men were just that-men. They weren’t chosen to be included in the line of the Messiah because they never messed up or because they somehow earned the privilege to be included.

Seeing how God used imperfect people to bring about His story…and how He used imperfect people in my family to bring about good….I felt confirmation that He can certainly bring about glory through imperfect ME, too.

Don’t count yourself out. God is glorified because of who HE is, regardless of the people He allows to be part of that story.