Devo Week 38

Our Place in History -- Mankind’s Pathway (Part 2)

Each of us are fearfully and wonderfully made in the image of God, but how did we get here? Our genealogy is a record of when and how our ancestors lived upon the earth. It is our own personal record of our place in the human story. It can also help us find our place within God's story.

Key Concept: Understanding from Looking Back

Someone said, "We live life looking forward, but only understand it by looking back." I can see God’s grace throughout the generations, as His merciful sparing of many gave me the opportunity to live.

I know of at least three occasions when my own father's life was spared miraculously. One was during the Korean War when a mortar landed beside his foot and did not detonate. Another was when he clung onto the underbelly of a moving tank to escape a battle that only few from his platoon survived. It's also been told that his grandmother, a Cherokee Native American, was hidden away in my hometown of Marion, North Carolina, in order to be saved from the ethnic cleansing of her people, known as the Trail of Tears.

Digging into our genealogies, we find divine encounters and gracious acts of God upon our ancestors. Our past forms our identity and is then transformed through our relationship with Jesus, individually and corporately. We enter life upon our ancestors' pathway, then continue laying a foundation for those who come after us. We do not live only for ourselves.

Listening to the Akha and Akeu elders tell their stories, it was always interesting to hear how God was involved at some level. I have shared in previous devotionals about the legend of the buffalo skin, the ritual of the village gate, the Mpi story of the angel, and the Ugong perspective of the Great Flood. These legends, myths and stories give accounts of how they encountered God in their history as a people group.

This is why our listening is so important: God made each people group and each person in His image. This places immeasurable value upon every human life.

Key Word Definition: fact (noun)

-- the truth about events as opposed to interpretation
-- a thing that is known or proved to be true
-- information used as evidence or as part of a report or news article

Excerpt from Devotional 38 with highlighted word:

"As I discussed in Devotional 37, genealogies are how many oral and ancient people groups discern truth from fantasy, fact from fiction. For the Akha and Akeu, genealogy is another way they express their respect for wisdom and age."

Scripture: Matthew 1:1

“This is the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham:”