How is it that regular people can have an effect on the great?
I'm sitting in the bi-partisan cafe right now. All around me are pictures of presidents. Pictures of great men and the causes they fought for. In the cafe are random average people. A group of college students sporting the beards they just got old enough to grow, a middle aged woman with a sweater vest, a stressed 30 yr old man with his forehead in his hand probably trying to figure out why his iphone isn't syncing with his macbook pro.
How do these two different groups of people ever interact? The great and the average. The renowned and the invisible. Is it by putting something like this blog out into the middle of cyberspace, will anyone of great renown read what I am writing today in this obscure little cafe in Portland, OR? Perhaps someone in here isn't average or invisible, perhaps someone in here is of great renown and I just don't know it. If we average people came into contact with the great what would we say? What would I have to offer a person of great renown?
In Gen 47 Joseph brings 5 of his brothers and his father into meet Pharaoh. He has instructed them to tell Pharaoh they are shepherds because shepherds are detestable to Egyptians and then Pharaoh will allow them to live in the land of Goshen. So we have 6 detestable shepherds walking into the throne room of Pharaoh. These guys aren't just average approaching greatness they are detestable approaching greatness. They tell Pharaoh what they were instructed to say by Joseph and sure enough Pharaoh says they can live in Goshen and if there are any among them truly gifted he would like to them to look after his own livestock. This is when something unexpected happens. Israel blesses Pharaoh!
How does this happen? How does the detestable shepherd end up blessing Pharaoh? Pharaoh asks Israel how old he is. Israel's reply is, "the years of my journey has been one hundred and thirty not a long time according to the lives of my fathers." I don't think it is just the number of years warranting the blessing. I think it was the years of his journey. The years of his journey with God, there was something more there Pharaoh recognized. Israel didn't say much, but there was something in his presence in who he had become on this journey, they way God had shaped him and Pharaoh must have seen it, because he allowed Israel to bless him.
From time to time I wonder what it is that gives me any right to stand up in front of a congregation and preach, to teach anything in a class, even to write this blog. On what ground do I speak, teach, or write. The only thing I have is God, his word, and my journey with him. This is the only ground I have to stand on. But here is the thing, it's enough. The average shepherd came in contact with a King and he blessed him, because of his journey with God.
What journey are you on today? What are the years of your journey shaping you into? Most importantly who are you on this journey with? A journey with God in faith will give you the ground not only to bless a king, but the average people who are sitting around you as well.
Journey with God, be a blessing!
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