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| Photo Credit: Microsoft Clip Art |
I love projects where I can see immediate
results. That is what I loved about my high school job. When I would mow a
lawn, I immediately saw the results of the cut grass. With each pass of the
mower beautiful stripes were put into a lawn. With each pass of the mower I was
one step closer to being finished with that particular lawn. That brought about
a lot of gratification.
My other high school job was working
at a movie theater. Sometimes that work seemed like it was never done. When
selling concessions it seemed like as soon as one customer was served, the line
was only getting longer. It was really difficult to enjoy the job at the movie
theater because there was no immediate gratification.
In our reading it has been hard to see
exactly what God is up to. Just imagine if you were living it as Israel and
Judah did. The once proud (in the proper context of proud) nation of Israel has
been torn in two, and now because of sin has been completely destroyed. As we
have read it can be a challenge to see what God is doing through all of this. Sometimes
it is simply hard to read all the death and destruction God is planning to dish
out. No wonder so many people read the Bible and walk away confused.
At West Side we are doing a thirty-one
week study through the Bible based on the book The Story. Through our study we have talked about God’s upper story
and God’s lower story. The lower story is what is happening to the people in
their every day lives. The upper story revolves around God’s overall plan. The
lower story often supports the upper story. Sometimes it can leave you scratching
your head to figure out how God will use the lower story to fulfill his upper
story plan.
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| Photo Credit: Microsoft Clip Art |
What I love about God is the fact that
there is a plan. Even when the lower story seems a mess, like it does right now
for Israel, God has not been thwarted. God has a plan, a prosperous plan of
hope for Israel … ““In those coming days,” says the LORD, “The people of Israel
will return home together with the people of Judah. They will come weeping and
seeking the LORD their God. They will ask the way to Jerusalem and will start
back home again. They will bind themselves to the LORD with an eternal covenant
that will never be forgotten.” (Jeremiah 50:4-5 NLT). God’s plan was restoration;
a restoration that would allow Him to continue in His upper story plan of
bringing hope to the entire world.
So how can you look at your lower
story and find hope in God’s upper story? Maybe right now the daily pains of
life are hard to bear. Maybe right now it is hard to see any hope. Maybe those
days are behind you or have not come yet. Maybe for you the best hope you can
turn to is the promise of spending eternity in the presence of God in Heaven. I
do not know about you, but that is a pretty good hope to me.
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