Telling God's Story Through The Hand We've Been Dealt

Recently, I was playing cards and as the cards were being dealt, I was very unhappy with the hand I was receiving. I was beginning to feel hopeless . I thought I was going to have to bluff my way through in order to come out ahead. However, the dealer made a mistake, which meant that we started over. Everyone turned in their old cards and were dealt brand new ones. Thankfully, my new hand was a great one. It was very different from my previous hand and in the end, I won, without having to bluff.

Ever feel you have been dealt a difficult hand in life? Ever feel like you got the short end of the stick in life or in your family? Ever look at your past with regret? Ever feel like you are simply bluffing your way through life? There is hope and comfort for each of us. We can have a future that is new and radically different from our past. Interestingly, this hope is found in the geneologies of Genesis. If we read carefully, we will see God's Story for the world and for each of us, is captured in these otherwise monotenous geneologies.

In Genesis 4 and 5 we read the geneologies of Cain, who killed his brother Abel and that of Seth, Adam and Eve's third son, whom they bore after Abel's death. In these geneologies we see the line of Cain, and the line of Seth each produce a son named Lemech. We do not know much of the Lemech related to Cain, but we do know something significant about the line of Lemech that descendended from Seth.

Seth's Lemech had a son named Noah. Seth's concern in those days was that his son would bring comfort and rest, because making a living was difficult. So, Lemech named his son Noah, which is very close in sounding like the Hebrew word for comfort. As we read in The Story, Noah was used by God to save the world by continuing the plan and promise of God, because Noah's offspring would eventually produce the promised Messiah, Jesus Christ.

Each of us are like the two Lamechs. Just as they were two different people, from two different lineages, but having the same name, we too can be two different people, from two different lineages, while maintaining our same name. We are all born from a lineage of sin, which chronically surpasses God's limits. But God's surpassing love can make us children of God, through His Son Jesus Christ; and thereby transform us into a different person of a new and different lineage, while maintaining the same name.

There was no mistake in the hand each of us has been dealt in life. However, God, through His Son, Jesus Christ, will take whatever hand we've been dealt, and give us a new deal, a new life, if we only we give up that hand to Him.