Good morning. Our thought for Christmas Eve morning was a musing regarding Josephs’ thoughts as he held the little baby Jesus in the dim light of that stable. I wondered in my writing about what it would have been like for a simple carpenter from a small town to be entrusted with being Dad to the Son of God. What could Jospeh have been thinking.
I hope you enjoyed that piece, but today I might throw a wrench into it. Of all the thoughts that would have been going through Joseph’s head as he held the tiny infant form of God’s Messiah, I wonder if those thoughts could have been summed up with this one: “Really? Me, God? Are you crazy?”
Joseph, apparently a person of sound mind who was fully aware of his own shortcomings, how could he imagine that God had gotten it right when He chose him to raise the Son of God? “Are you crazy” seems like a reasonable question when you consider Joseph, fully aware of the nature of the job he had been given and equally aware that he was in no way, shape, or form capable of managing such a task.
When you think about it, if that was Joseph’s reaction it may not have been the first time God heard such a thing.
What would Abraham have thought when God told him to take his son Isaac and offer him as a sacrifice? This was the son whose birth had been a miracle, the son of God’s promise. God said, “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.” Genesis 22:2 Abraham did exactly as he was commanded, but God intervened, and Isaac was kept safe. I can imagine that somewhere in there Abraham may have had a question for God that went unspoken. If so, the question may have been something like, “Are you crazy!”
Gideon was told to lead a small and unprepared group of Israelites into a fight against a large and well-prepared army. The 10,000 soldiers he started with wouldn‘t have seemed like nearly enough. But along the way, God decided that this greatly outnumbered “army” of Israelites was too large. He told Gideon to pare the number down until he was left with only 300. Gideon obeyed, all went well, and the victory was theirs through God’s power and glory. But I do wonder, what did Gideon think when he saw the enemy’s camp lit by 100,000 fires? Would he have looked at his 300 men, heard that instead of fighting with swords they were to blow horns and irritate the enemy, and been fine with it? Somewhere in there I wonder if Gideon, or at least some of those with him, didn’t secretly question of God, “Are you crazy!”
Ezra and Nehemiah were each told to go to kings and explain that the kings in question should let them go back to their homeland to rebuild Jerusalem and the temple of their God. “And oh, by the way, great king, you need to pay for it”. These were kings who were well known for having people executed with very little provocation.The requests of those two Israelites were bold, unreasonable, and extraordinarily dangerous. They each made their way before the kings, and they both made their plea exactly as God had instructed them to ask it. But I wonder, did either of them while walking toward the throne room wonder of God, “Are you crazy!”
No, we are not told that any of these people ever thought such a thing. Each of them, and many others, obeyed the commands of God without such questions, and they were blessed.
There may come a time when we might wonder about a command of God, “Are you sure about this Lord? I mean this seems to me at least a little…you know…”
No, God is never wrong. God never commands something that will end in failure when we obey Him. It may not always make immediate sense to us, but if God has made it clear that it is His will and intention, the answer must always be, “Yes Lord!”
Vern