Acts 7:1-9
New International Version (NIV)
7 Then
the high priest asked Stephen, “Are these charges true?”
2 To this he replied:
“Brothers and fathers, listen to me! The God of glory appeared to our father
Abraham while he was still in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Harran. 3 ‘Leave
your country and your people,’ God said, ‘and go to the land I will show you.’[a]
4 “So he left the land of
the Chaldeans and settled in Harran. After the death of his father, God sent
him to this land where you are now living. 5 He gave him no
inheritance here, not even enough ground to set his foot on. But God promised
him that he and his descendants after him would possess the land, even though
at that time Abraham had no child. 6 God spoke to him in this
way: ‘For four hundred years your descendants will be strangers in a country
not their own, and they will be enslaved and mistreated. 7 But
I will punish the nation they serve as slaves,’ God said, ‘and afterward they
will come out of that country and worship me in this place.’[b] 8 Then he gave Abraham the
covenant of circumcision. And Abraham became the father of Isaac and
circumcised him eight days after his birth. Later Isaac became the father of
Jacob, and Jacob became the father of the twelve patriarchs.
9 “Because the patriarchs
were jealous of Joseph, they sold him as a slave into Egypt. But God was with
him.
I have
been in a bit of a writing slump because I have not known how to break this
passage up. Stephen gave an impelling
speech to the Jewish people, quite a history lesson but none of them wanted to listen
to him.
As I
looked over this passage there was something that stood out to me and that was
in verse 9, a verse that I thought I would save until another day, until I saw
the words, “But God was with him.”
Do you
ever wonder how God is involved in your life?
Do troubles become so overwhelming that you wonder if God really cares
or not? I have had those feelings and I
have to wonder if Abraham felt that way.
I wonder if Abraham thought that he could have misunderstood God. We know that He tried to take matters into
his own hands (with the help of his wife and her maidservant). Or Isaac may have wondered what he had done
wrong as a father to lose his favorite child.
He may have thought that God was punishing him.
Then I
wonder how Joseph felt when his own brothers sold him into slavery and how he
still tried to do what was right and ended up in jail. I know my faith is not even close to these
men’s faith. Especially the faith of
Joseph who the Bible does not record any of his doubting or complaining. I know
I would have doubted over and over again.
These
men were not just Bible characters in a book for our reading pleasure. These were real men who loved the Lord their
God with all their heart, soul, and mind.
How do I measure up to the faith measuring tape? Not nearly as tall as all of them, they were
giants in their time, I am a mouse.
We need
to stand tall and know that God is with us, even if we don’t always feel that
way. We need to continue to seek Him,
His will, and His way because it is by far the best.
Seeking
Him with all my heart,
Sheila
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