Unprecedented

I bet Joseph sometimes longed for the simple days of his childhood- you know, before betrayal and slavery and prison and even the weight of caring for the known world through an “unprecedented” famine, even from his seat of luxury in Pharaoh’s cabinet.

I bet Moses sometimes longed for his own childhood, living comfortably in the palace, when he wasn’t leading a whining multitude through a wasteland and dealing with plagues and rebellion and whatnot. This task God gave him was “unprecedented.”

I bet Joshua longed for the days of Moses, when he could just open his tent flap, enjoy some manna for breakfast, and go sit in the quiet of God’s presence in the tabernacle; actually marching into Canaan and taking possession of the promised land was “unprecedented.”

I could go on.

Ruth?

Samuel?

David?

Josiah?

Jeremiah?

Daniel?

Nehemiah?

Mary and Joseph?

Paul?

Or how about William Tyndale, Martin Luther, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Corrie ten Boom, Martin Luther King Jr...?

Who are these people in times gone by who had it easy? Who weren’t living through something “unprecedented?”

History marches on. And as they say, it tends to repeat itself. Why?

Because humanity has not changed- sure, we have indoor plumbing and modern medicine and magical pocket-sized devices that dominate our lives, but the core of what we long for and live and die for, the idols we bow down to, have not changed.

The enemy has not changed. He’s used the same tricks since the garden. He’s studied up, you know- he’s not omnipotent or omniscient, but after thousands of years of careful study he’s pretty good at predicting human behavior and knowing our weakness. He seeks to work us woe, but still- his doom is sure.

And our God? HE HAS NOT CHANGED. Nothing, not one blip in history’s vast sweeping timeline, has been out of His control or took Him by surprise. He is as trustworthy now as He was 2,000 years ago.

So with an enemy against us and unprecedented times around us, what are the people of God to do? The same thing the long line of faithful before us have done: wake up, entrust yourself to our Good Father, worship Him, obey Him with the next thing He puts before you. That’s it. That’s enough.