A Family Tree with Deep Roots.

Every family has one, I’m sure you will know exactly who I am talking about. This person has a memory like an elephant, they can tell you the name, birth-date, height and most likely the last known location of every one of your relatives that is perched on the branches of your family tree. They spent countless hours pouring over records trying to establish a lineage that ties us back to the beginning of time when Adam walked with God in the Garden.

1 Chronicles is divided into 29 chapters, the first nine of those highlight a lengthy genealogy that begins with Adam, then works its ways through the all the tribes of Israel and eventually ends with the family line of Saul. Finding excitement within the study of historical documents such as the Chronicles in my mind extends only to a limited audience. It is the picture of a truly faithful God through generation after generation of people that is encouraging to me. The law and word of our sovereign God had not changed throughout their time, it was the people who changed. It was a gracious and loving God who always wanted them to come back to Him and that is what we read in these books. There is more going on through these chapters than the rebuilding of God’s house, for me it is about relationships, about people.

Our God is great and mighty, and His power goes beyond our capacity to understand how His plan unfolds. The evidence of His work in the lives of people is recorded here in scripture, it really is a treasure that should not be overlooked. I don’t often think about or look back into my own family history, but it would be interesting to look back and see how God used the people in my family tree to help build His kingdom. Generations from now I wonder how people will look back to my life and the life of my family? It is my hope and prayer that they can find the same encouragement as I do in the faithfulness of a God who is described below in 1 Chronicles 29:11-12.

“Yours, Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the majesty and the splendor,for everything in heaven and earth is yours. Yours, Lord, is the kingdom; you are exalted as head over all. Wealth and honor come from you; you are the ruler of all things. In your hands are strength and power to exalt and give strength to all”.