I don’t know about you but I sometimes struggle with feeling that I’m not doing enough for God. I know I don’t read enough, pray enough, witness enough, just all around do enough. I’m in rural Illinois not Africa helping the starving and AIDS afflicted. I’m just living my life trying to be as good a follower of Christ as I can. What is enough? What is that important thing I’m supposed to do for God? How will I know? Every verse in the Bible is there for a purpose. Often we read over them without seeing the intent of God when it was included.
Gen. 37:16-17 “I’m looking for my brothers,” Joseph said. “Can you tell me where they are pasturing their flocks?” “They’ve moved on from here,” the man said. “I heard them say, ‘Let’s go to Dothan.’” So Joseph set out after his brothers and found them at Dothan. We know the story. Israel had told his son Joseph to go to find his brothers. So Joseph goes and they aren’t where he expects them to be. A man asks him where he’s going and when Joseph explains the man basically says, “They went that a way.” Why was this exchange included in the Bible? The event doesn’t really have to be told. The three verse which encompass it have no real impact on the story and could have been left out. So why is it there? I think it’s there to show us that no matter how small and simple we think what we are doing is it’s worthy in God’s sight if we are faithfully following his way. Maybe the one thing God wants you to do in your entire life is to smile at the checker at Walmart on a day he/she is feeling down. Maybe it’s to take your mother-in-law to the doctor when you really needed to be someplace else. Maybe, just like the man in the story, it’s to give directions when someone asks. God doesn’t ask for each of us to do big, flashy things for him. He wants us to do what we can when asked with a joyful attitude. “They went that a way.” And an anonymous man is remembered for all time in the Word of God.
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April 2018
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