The Great Migration

“There is a time for everything, a season for every activity under heaven.”

-Ecclesiastes 3:1

I am always glad to see Fall. I love the cooler days and the cooler nights, the colors, the clear and starry night skies, and the excitement that change is coming. There are some changes that I feel more than others, though – all of the coming and going. I watch birds like Scissortails and Kites stop their aerial acrobatics and head toward warmer pastures. Monarch butterflies start arriving in dogged ones and twos, and finally crowds, all flying wearily south in mystifying migration patterns that I wonder if they are even aware they are a part of. Hawks migrate through, and crows fill their places. Even people that have held dear places in my heart are “migrating” away, and new relationships will be migrating in. All of this migrating, this coming and going, makes a person start to wonder about the big-picture purpose for all of this moving around.

All of this coming and going also makes me marvel at how God sets the stage for the things He is about to do in our lives. Everything God does fits into an incredible plan that includes the most minute details. So as I watch leaves falling from trees and monarchs floating in and out of the falling leaves, I think to myself that it must be exciting to be a part of something so big, so grand, so timeless. Something that has been going on for thousands of years. Then the inevitable question becomes “Where and what is my place in all of this?” What is my purpose?

You and I are not the only ones to ask that question, and this brings me to what I think is my favorite part of the entire Bible. It’s not something that is often quoted in sermons and it’s not anything you see kids memorizing in Sunday school. In fact, it’s probably skimmed over a lot because of how unexciting it looks on the surface. I’m talking about Luke 3:23. It’s a list of Jesus’ ancestors. And it’s long. It takes us all the way back to Adam, in fact. In one person’s name is the representation of God’s favorite creation, the fall of man, and God’s plan to bring his favorite creation back to Him. God had the most grandest, most incredible plan of all time, and He was patiently waiting for the right people to get it set into motion. The list of ancestors advances, generations of men coming and going, from Adam to Noah to Abram. God chooses Abram to begin a journey that would begin a chain of events, as He instructs Abraham to move to Canaan and become the father of nations. Was Abraham going to see the final product of all of his labor? Was he going to see Jesus come and save all souls? Did he even know what God was going to do or how he was going to do it? Well, not exactly. But if Abraham hadn’t fulfilled his purpose, God’s plan would have been dropped to a dead halt. The list of names unfolds further before my eyes– Isaac, Jacob, Judah, Boaz, David, Joshua. And the list doesn’t just represent the men who fathered the next generation of people in each successive step in God’s plan. The list represents countless women (like Esther who found herself in a king’s court with the purpose of saving the Jews, and therefore David’s bloodline), countless children (like Moses’ big sister who played a role in preserving his life as an infant), countless sinners (anybody remember Jacob stealing his brother’s blessing and birthrights?), countless underdogs (Joseph, who was sold as a slave, came to lead Israelites into Egypt, setting the stage for Moses to show God’s strength by delivering them from Egypt), and – you knew I was going to say it – single people (like the two midwives who refused to kill all of the Hebrew baby boys, also preserving the bloodline to Jesus). The list even represents generations of people who didn’t make it to the list. What they all have in common is that every single one of them had a purpose and that was to get Jesus here. Some of them carried his blood, some of them protected the people who would carry his blood, some of them developed the laws that needed to be in place before Jesus could fulfill his purpose, some got people where they needed to be before the next step in God’s plan could happen. Some had to carry people through dark times so that God could use the next generation like a spotlight. There are over 70 generations of people recorded in that list and I love it because I can see God’s big picture, I can see the wheels turning, I see that if any one of those people hadn’t filled their purpose, however great or small, that it would have had the most drastic and terrible impact on me, thousands and thousands of years later.

There is a season for everything, alright. Like those monarchs, God has a purpose for me. He has a purpose for all of us, coming and going, moving and staying in place, planting and harvesting, tearing down and building, crying and laughing, embracing and turning away, being quiet and speaking up – God has a purpose for all of us. We are all part of a great migration – souls flying upward to Heaven – and we’re to bring everyone with us that we can.