Focus

As you quiet yourself for this brief time, be willing to be open to God, however that may take place.

 

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Read

Ruth 4: 18-22 (NRSV)

Now these are the descendants of Perez: Perez became the father of Hezron, Hezron of Ram, Ram of Amminadab, Amminadab of Nahshon, Nahshon of Salmon, Salmon of Boaz, Boaz of Obed, Obed of Jesse, and Jesse of David.

 

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Reflect

I don’t know about you, but when I get to passages like this in the Bible, my first instinct is to skip them! First, I cannot pronounce the names. Second, I’m not going to remember anyone on these lists unless they were really important, and if that is the case, they will be in other stories that I will be reading and studying. I almost did that in choosing a scripture from my choices for today’s eVotion, but when we dismiss a passage like this, we overlook and forget something vital in God’s story.

These are more than names on a list. These names are people; people who are part of a family. They are part of God’s family, but they are also part of the same biological family with one another. Each name represents a life that was lived as full as they could live it within their respective times. Each name represents someone who made a contribution to the family and to God’s plan. Each name represents someone who had dreams, goals, visions, and hopes to achieve. We may not know what those individual hopes were, we may not know much about them other than their name, but we know they labored and raised a family. They passed on their knowledge and fear of the Lord to the next generation. We must also not forget that while we only read the father’s names on this list, there are many countless others in the family who remained unknown and unspoken. Each name had a mother, who was a wife and a daughter to someone. There were probably other brothers and sisters who were not mentioned since they did not come first in the birth order. All of these fathers, mothers, other brothers and sisters, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and anyone else the family took in all served a role in their family. They all worked together to nurture love. They all had a place in the family of God.

In the overall story of history, in our denomination, in our local congregations, there are many names that only appear as a name on the church records. When I look back at our church rolls, I know those people in their time made an impact for God. They are the reason that we inherited the church we are part of today. Perhaps our names, may not catch the attention of the history writers when our stories are complete on this side of heaven. Maybe we just never will do anything grand enough to get our own chapter of the story, but know that we all have a place in the family of God, we all can make an impact in our place, in our time for God. God has placed us in this moment, for such a time as this. Are we making the most of our place in God’s family?

 

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Pray

Lord, sometimes we don’t think that we are making a difference for you, but help us to realize that we are all part of your family and your plans. Just as these family members that we read about today had their place and time, help us to impact our place and time for you. Amen.

 

Go with God!