When we forget that God cares

Sometimes I start to read into things that happen in my life in a way that seems somewhat absurd to the average person, and occasionally even me.  It usually starts off as something funny or unique that happened in my day and later on as I reflect about it, I think… this has to have a deeper meaning.  Who does that? Seriously, if you know anybody else who does that besides me, I think I should meet that person.  Because I find myself doing that a lot and it seems ridiculous, even to me.

Anyway, moving on to my story of deep hidden meaning.  Here it comes.  Can you feel the suspense?  If I were you I would have skipped this whole motivation section and just read on to the good part below.   

So this morning started out as a normal morning.  I woke up after my second alarm, rolled out of bed, got in the shower and washed my hair.  I slapped a whole bunch of shampoo on my head and lathered my hair up real good.  Usually, while my hair is soaking up the nutrients (or whatever is really in shampoo) I shave my legs if I have time.  Turns out this morning, I did.  But while I was taking my time shaving my legs, the shower head started sputtering.  Now, back in the States, I would have probably thought that someone was playing a trick on me or maybe even that girl from The Ring ( have you seen that movie? I haven’t been the same since) found her way to the plumbing in my house.  But since I live in Rwanda, I knew right away what it was.  We were out of water.  DUM Dum dummmm.  That just felt like the right moment for the dums.  The way the city water works here is… sometimes it doesn’t.  There is a water gage in our yard that, if it’s spinning, we are receiving water from the city.  If it’s not, then we are out of luck.  We have a water tank about the size of a smart car that collects that water.  Let’s just say, we haven’t been receiving water from the city in quite some time… long enough for us to run out of our smart car water.  So there I was.  Dripping with soap, halfway shaven, and already pondering how in the world I was going to rinse my hair clean of this mop of shampoo.  I prayed to God that he would be kind and give me some water to allow me to finish washing my hair.  Not long after that prayer, I yelled to my roommate to check the water pump who later returned with the news that the pump was on, but not running.  I put on my robe, fully prepared to have to walk to school to use the water from my sink in my classroom to finish cleaning up for a work day.  And then I heard it.  The pump started running!  I jumped back in the shower and was able to rinse my hair all the way through. Praise God!  About 10 seconds after my hair was rinsed free of shampoo residue, the water went out again.  Still as I’m typing to you 16 hours later, the water is still out.  I honestly could care less if I get to shower again before I leave in less than 2 days for the States because I didn’t even think I’d get to finish my last shower, and yet, I did. 

Now, there are many different ways I could go for an analogy to go along with this story.  But the one that has been plaguing me has been that God cares.  Cheesy maybe, but true.   Let me point out something to you that my story presented that you may not have caught onto.  My first response to my shower problem was to try to think of a way to solve the problem myself.  My second resort was to ask God for his divine water giving power to help me out.  My third action showed my lack of belief that God was actually going to help me in this soapy situation.  My fourth action was to try and handle it myself.  This all took place in about 3 minutes mind you.  It didn’t take me long to get to the fourth action.  The part about God caring comes in right after I decided the solution was up to me.  It was in my control whether or not my hair stayed soapy the rest of the day, but it was not in my control whether or not the water came back on.  This story could have been way different with a tale about me running in my robe to school and getting there and realizing I forgot my keys…  That would have been entertaining, but much less fun for me to live out.  When that water turned back on, it took me about a quarter of a second to receive that water for what it was- an act of mercy.  Sometimes I think that when God gives us little moments like that, he craves for us to recognize the ways in which he cares for us.  When I have water day after day, I don’t even think about the fact that it comes from God.  I think… it’s city water so it come from the city. Duh.  When the things I count on are given easily to me, God’s craving for recognition gets overlooked.  But when I am without these things, all of a sudden, it’s easier to turn to God to replenish my supply, even though I am still probably going to search for a solution on my own.  Regardless of my actions or faith, God still cares and shows us everyday how he cares, even when we don’t give him the recognition he deserves. 

Thanks for taking a part in the journey of finding deeper meaning in seemingly meaningless happenings in my life.

Jesus Tree

Have you ever tried to read through the genealogy of Jesus?  Usually, I skip right over those impossible names right on to something less boring.  It seemed to me that Jesus’ ancestor timeline might hold some importance, but that insight didn’t seem worth stumbling through an ongoing list of names that actually made me develop a stutter. 

In light of Christmas coming up, the genealogy of Christ seems to hold some weight on my heart.  We studied through the 2 genealogies mentioned in Matthew 1 and Luke 3 in my bible study group and I found it very enlightening.  I would like to share some of the things I found interesting and life-giving about those two genealogies of Christ.

First off, Matthew and Luke’s letters had two different audiences.  Matthew was writing to the Jews and Luke was writing to the Gentiles.  This explains why their lists of ancestors look different. Matthew started with Abraham and worked his way to Jesus whereas Luke started with Jesus and worked his way to Adam and even back to God.  Since Matthew was writing to the Jews, he was aware that they were looking for a Messiah to come from the relatives of Abraham.  He didn’t need to go back any further because all he needed to do was prove that Christ was the son of Abraham.   The Gentiles were not as informed about the Messiah’s lineage.  Luke, knowing this, pointed them from Jesus all the way back to God.  This could paint the picture to these people that Jesus was related to all human beings. 

In Matthew’s lineage of Christ, he includes women (in parentheses).  That wouldn’t be that interesting except that the women that are included are very prominent women because of the controversy they represent. Tamar, Ruth, Rahab, Bathsheba, and Mary are all mentioned in the Bible having gasp-worthy stories told about them.  Tamar tricked the father of her child into having sex with by pretending to be a prostitute on the side of the road.  She preceded by snatching his seal so that later on she could prove that he was the father.  Ruth was a Gentile but married a Jew.  Rahab was a prostitute who helped lead some of God’s men to safety during a war.   Bathsheba was a married woman when King David decided he wanted to have her for his own.  She conceived a child out of an affair with a King, the same King that had her husband murdered.  Mary was an engaged virgin when she mysteriously became pregnant with God’s son.  Becoming pregnant out of wedlock was considered worthy of a stoning back then.  Needless to say, these women were not mentioned just because.  Matthew seemed like he was trying to make a point about the lineage of Christ.  God used messy situations to lead to the coming of the fallen world’s savior! 

I was reading a devotional not too long ago that said that both Mary and Joseph are descendants of David.  I remember being confused about that because in both Matthew and Luke’s record of Jesus’ lineage, neither of them seemed to be traced back to Mary.  Not that I was doubting that Jesus was the awaited Messiah, but I was confused because Joseph was not a blood relative of Christ, yet it was his family tree presented in the Bible, not Mary’s.  Well, come to find out one of them DOES trace back to Mary.  Luke’s audience was the Gentiles and it was tradition not to include any female names in their genealogies.  This means that when Luke started the genealogy off by saying “Jesus was known as the son of Joseph” he is recognizing that Joseph is not his biological father.  Right after that he says, “Joseph was the son of Heli” which is a different father than is recorded in Matthew where it says, “Jacob was the father of Joseph”.  How did I miss that?  Probably because I always skipped over this section of the Bible.  So, clearly Luke was talking about Joseph’s father-in-law, which means it’s true!  God’s promise was fulfilled two-fold.  That’s just like God, isn’t it?  His promises have been and will all be fulfilled in time.  Praise God for sending us a Savior and for promising us salvation and a resurrection of the dead through Jesus Christ! Amen!