Context No. 2672 of 4322 · Genesis

Genesis 11:22-26: in context

22Serug lived thirty years, and became the father of Nahor. 23Serug lived two hundred years after he became the father of Nahor, and became the father of more sons and daughters. 24Nahor lived twenty-nine years, and became the father of Terah. 25Nahor lived one hundred nineteen years after he became the father of Terah, and became the father of more sons and daughters. 26Terah lived seventy years, and became the father of Abram, Nahor, and Haran.

The genealogy runs its quiet course, another string of names, Serug, Nahor, Terah, each living, fathering the next, and dying, the record moving generation by generation with nothing dramatic to report. And then it arrives, almost without warning, at a name the whole rest of the Bible turns on: Terah became the father of Abram.

For generations, nothing seems to be happening, just ordinary people living ordinary lives, one link after another. And all the while, unseen, the line is advancing toward the man God will call to begin his whole plan of redemption. The great breakthrough comes out of an unremarkable family in an unremarkable stretch of history that a reader would skim without a second glance. That is often how God works. His largest purposes advance quietly through ordinary generations and uneventful seasons, and then break into the open. The plain list that leads to Abram is a reminder not to despise the ordinary stretch, because God may be moving toward a breakthrough in it that no one can yet see.

Can I trust that God is advancing his purpose through the ordinary, uneventful stretches of my life and lineage, on the way to a breakthrough I cannot yet see?

Sources

Genesis 11:26: Terah lived seventy years, and became the father of Abram, Nahor, and Haran.
Genesis 12:1: Now the LORD said to Abram, Get out of your country... to the land that I will show you.
1 Corinthians 1:27: God chose the foolish things of the world that he might put to shame those who are wise.