Scripture is full of heroes. There are villains too, to be sure, but when contrasted to the heroes they seem so transparent.
These heroes are the ones that we can name and know at least some of what they did without thinking at all.
Moses was the leader of Israel through Exodus.
David fought and killed Goliath.
Elijah stood for God seemingly alone.
Peter walked on water.
Paul was the great missionary.
Scripture goes from incredible great believer to incredible great believer.
That leaves me wondering where I am in these stories.
I’m not some great leader of any number of people, I don’t have the privilege of seeing physical examples of God’s presence in my life. I cannot walk on water, despite my best efforts, and I have no great influence of any church leaders broadly, nor does anyone look for my letters or correspondence for any sort of instruction.
I am one of the people who sit between the events of Scripture. The innumerable people who may not even be named in all that happens throughout Scripture.
If there is one thing I wish the Bible had more of, it is the story of those people.
The ones that live near the narrative, the ones affected by the story, but that aren’t who the story is written about.
Scripture reads much more like a hall of fame than it does a diary of the day to day life of believers.
Even through the book of Acts, Paul lives in many of the places he is visiting for years. Years of quiet, diligent, faithful living inside of a city. He lives with the Corinthians for at least a year, and he stays with the Ephesians for nearly three years. Luke talks about Paul living and working with people in the book of Acts, he talks about Paul working as a tentmaker. There were relationships formed, friendships created, and connections made through that time that he continued to rely on throughout his ministry.
Look at how he closes his letters; Paul greets people by name. In these closings we see names of otherwise unknown people make appearances in the grand story. Paul may have been the great evangelist, but there were people that blessed him throughout his life that we only know about because he chose to greet them personally in his letters.
How could we even guess at the number of people that were involved in the lives of the Biblical ‘greats’ that we will never know about? None of the Heroes of Faith were alone throughout their lives quietly meditating on what it meant to be a follower of God. They each had families and friends and relationships throughout their lives. Moses’s family supported him at times, and opposed him at times, David’s family was much the same, and we see a direct impact on Peter’s life because of his mother-in-law. These relationships must have had an impact on their choices throughout their ministries.
My story, at least at this stage of my life, is to live faithfully and persistently in my pursuit of Christ. To walk through my day to day life and be one of the diligent and intentional people that may not even be named through Scripture, but that undoubtedly impacted the men and women that were.
The story of Scripture shows us that we aren’t the center of the story. God uses people over and over again that would otherwise be lost to time. He takes the people that are willing to listen and accomplishes His story through them. The Gospel is told and retold throughout the Bible, and it’s precisely through the people that we would never think twice about.
God has a desire that we voluntarily take part in His story. When we move where He leads us we get to see the stories of Abraham, Moses, Paul, all the faithful, but God can also bring about His desired result when we don’t agree with what He is doing. He will bring about the result that He intends for His creation.
Look at Jonah, he goes to Nineveh, but it isn’t because he wants them to succeed. He doesn’t tell them who or what is threatening their disaster, he doesn’t tell them what to do to avoid their impending doom. He speaks less than a dozen words to the entire town.
We see that later he doesn’t want God’s forgiveness to find this city, he says he’d rather die than witness the repentance of these people.
Jonah does the bare minimum, and actively tries to avoid the rescue of the people of Nineveh. Jonah didn’t feel pressure to speak his best so that someone there would hear him and repent, he didn’t want them to.
Despite this, the people of Nineveh hear and obey the Lord.
There’s beauty in knowing that the message of God will be heard despite the messenger. God wants us to follow, Jesus says that if we love Him then we will obey Him; that is all we have to do. There is no pressure from God for us to be the hero of the story, Scripture shows us that Jesus is the Hero. We are not the ones to fulfill any overarching master plan in order to redeem anyone or anything. We created this pressure to excuse ourselves from pursuing our Faith genuinely. We aren’t the architect of anyone’s salvation.
The Author is writing the story, and it is up to us to decide whether we are going to be willing participants with Him, or if He is going to accomplish His work in spite of us.