Thread by @BethMooreLPM

Thought I’d tell you a story this AM about our family. And mostly about God & His ways. My sister-in-law sent a text to me yesterday with a screenshot of recognition my nephew (late 20s) got for saving a little boy’s life while off duty in a restaurant. My nephew is a fireman.

What you need to know is that a fire nearly destroyed Keith‘s family. When Keith & his older brother were little bitty boys, they were in the garage playing with their plastic lawnmower & decided to *fill it* with real gas from the gas can. Gas rolled under the water heater.

Set the whole garage ablaze. Both boys were burned but gas had spilled on Keith’s older brother, just 3 1/2, as they’d poured it on the plastic mower. Both boys hospitalized. Keith’s precious older brother lived 6 days. Keith survived but deeply scarred in heart, mind and soul.

No thread could be sufficient to tell you the ramifications of that awful day, some of them ongoing. I was with my mother-in-law on that beloved son’s birthday a while back. She cried, blotting her eyes with a crumpled Kleenex from her pocket. Then I cried.

But Joe is a fireman.

That fire nearly killed that whole family. But, come the 3rd generation, that family fought back. We have us a firefighter with some of his uncle’s blood in his veins. His name is Joe. He saved a little boy’s life a few days ago.

All of us groan for some glimpse of redemption.

Life’s so hard. So much suffering. We want full redemption now. Some sense of meaning in this meaningless chasm. God is faithful. He comforts, sustains, strengthens & helps us survive. But it may be a while before we see astonishing evidences of God redemption. It may be heaven.

I was thinking about how God promised Abraham he’d be a father of many, that his descendants would outnumber the stars. He had exactly 2 sons & those after years of waiting & only 1 of them was a legitimate heir of the promises.

He had 1 little star in his sky. ONE.

But we...

...know how it turned out. For crying out loud, those of us in Jesus are part of how it turned out. Abraham’s descendants have sure enough dotted the night sky with innumerable stars. We think somehow what we do not see with our own eyes in our own lifetime is forfeited promise.

We are wrong about that. God will keep his promises to us. But what may be hard for us to grasp is that he may keep them to us by fulfilling them in our family line. Or in our spiritual line. In our sons & daughters in the faith. Know this day, loved of God, HE WILL BE FAITHFUL.

“I am sure of this, that he who started a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” Phil.1:6

Doesn’t say til the day of your death. Your story doesn’t end with your death. Jesus will still be carrying it on to completion when He comes back.