The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. (Lamentations 3:22-23)

Here at GLCC, we are in the middle of our summer series, “Hearing the Father’s Voice.” And one of the concepts we’ve been pondering is that much like Elijah withdrew to a cave on Mt. Sinai when he needed to hear God’s still small voice, (1 Kings 19), we too need to create space to hear God, especially in our busy, overstimulated, and chaotic world.

I’ve been getting great feedback from our GLCC family as we corporately make space to listen to God each day. He does speak to our heart, doesn’t He?

For me, I’ve been working through the Old Testament books of Joshua, Judges, and Ruth for the past few weeks. It’s been rich and rewarding. One of the major themes I’ve been connecting with is God’s faithfulness to his people. The stories in these historical books contain many highs and lows–from Joshua and the battle of Jericho to the serial unfaithfulness of Israel during the approximately 400 years of the Judges. This book records twelve times that the nation of Israel strayed from God, got in deep, deep trouble, called out to the LORD, and He delivered them. And then, who doesn’t love the beautiful and tender story of Ruth…the penniless and destitute Gentile woman who risks it all, marries a rich Jewish farmer, becomes part of God’s covenant people, and takes her place in the direct line of Jesus the Messiah.

For many years I read these stories moralistically. Maybe it was because of the way they were taught in Sunday School or the preaching I’ve heard over the years. But the messages all seemed to follow the same mold…be good, obey God and you won’t get in trouble. Be bad and you might get squashed like a bug. So be good, for goodness sake. Stay faithful to God!

Now, there is a small kernel of truth in this. People who order their lives after God and His kingdom do experience joy and blessing, and people who ignore God and make decisions out of line with His character do often experience dreadful consequences. But is that the point of these stories?

God has been showing me this time that these stories, in fact, all of the Bible’s stories, are about Him and His faithfulness.

At the very beginning, God told Israel He “would never leave them” (Joshua 1:5) and through thick and thin, He never did. In spite of Israel not having enough faith to completely conquer the land, God was with them. In spite of following after other gods twelve times, God still delivered. And God is SO faithful and good that He will even take a Moabite woman and make her part of His family as the great-grandmother of King David, and ultimately of Jesus.

God is faithful and it is out of that faithfulness He will conform us to the image of Jesus.