Playing My Part in God's Long Game: Three Insights
When we read the Bible, especially the Old Testament, we forget the lengthy time-spans that are involved. We see the highlights, those moments when God moves to change the trajectory of events, but we don’t see the long periods in between those moments.
We see God promise old man Abraham that he and his elderly wife Sarah will bear a son. It was ten years before that promise was fulfilled (during which Abraham and Sarah concocted their own plan to help God).
We see Joseph thrown into prison on false charges. There he interprets the dreams of two other prisoners. Joseph knows that one of them will soon be released and asks that he will mention him to Pharaoh (Gen 40:14-15). That prisoner is released, but he forgets to say anything about Joseph.
Then the next chapter begins with the words “two years later” (Gen 41:1). Those were surely long years for Joseph.
And when the seventy members of Jacob’s clan make their way down to Egypt, they have no way of knowing that it would be four centuries before their descendants are able to return to the Land promised to their fathers!
And through it all, God is playing the long game. He doesn’t lose the thread of the narrative; He is patiently working out His plans over lifetimes, generations, centuries, millennia.
In our sermon series on the Book of Exodus we have seen Moses balk at God’s call on his life. He has quite a few excuses why he shouldn’t be expected to play the role God laid out for him. But Moses’ experience isn’t unique. God has a role for all of His children to play, and we are often reluctant.
I am teaching biblical theology to our PPC homeschoolers. Biblical theology tries to explain the narrative arc of Scripture as one long story focused on the person and work of Christ. And I often remind my young students: “You can be the main character in your own little story, or you can play your role in God’s Grand Story.”
I think there are three things we need to remember as we discover and play our part in God’s Grand Narrative:
1. I don't need to know the Big Picture to be obedient in the moment.
“The World’s Last Night,” CS Lewis’ essay on the Second Coming, speaks to the importance of playing our role, despite our ignorance: “We do not know the play. We do not even know whether we are in Act I or Act V. We do not know who are the major and who the minor characters. The Author knows…. We are led to expect that the Author will have something to say to each of us on the part that each of us has played. The playing it well is what matters infinitely.”
In the swirling vortex of our cultural moment, it is easy for me to lose track of this singular constant: God has called me to be obedient, regardless of how it will make me look, regardless of the result, regardless of my feelings in the moment.
I must obey regardless of whether I understand why I must obey.
2. God will provide all the resources I need to play my role, but He won’t provide resources for me to play someone else’s role.
Someone once observed that God will be sure to equip His people for the tasks He lays out for them: “Where He guides, He provides.” If God has called me to a work, He will ensure that I have what I need to accomplish that work: the gifts, the connections, the finances, the support.
But if I veer out of my lane, taking on responsibilities that He has assigned to others, I cannot expect Him to supply the resources I need.
My task is to identify my role and to play it well. This means that I cannot let vanity and jealousy contaminate my ministry motives. I may wish God had equipped me with different gifts so that I could undertake different responsibilities, but I have no business second-guessing God’s ministry assignments.
3. I must not see setbacks as final.
Since God is playing the long game, and since He knows what He’s doing, I need not fear that a setback, no matter how catastrophic, is the end. He knew about all the pitfalls long before He sent me on mission. And His plan expertly weaves the setbacks into the grand tapestry that will turn out to be beautiful once it is finished.
Setbacks, then, are actually intriguing: how has God planned to use this discouraging moment to accomplish His wise and good purposes? This catastrophe didn’t take Him by surprise, and He will still have His way, regardless of how it looks in the moment. In fact, if I could see the entire plan from beginning to end, I would enthusiastically endorse this turn of events as the best possible path toward achieving His goals.
I don’t know where you are in your own role in God’s Story. You may be in one of the long lulls where it appears He has lost track of your whereabouts and it seems He isn’t listening to your prayers.
Or you may be in the middle of a crisis where you wonder how God could possibly be involved in the middle of such heartache.
Regardless of your situation, remember Whom you serve: the Eternal, the Great I Am, the One for whom a thousand years is like a day. Regardless of your feelings right now, remember that you are destined for glory, you are moving toward a day when you see all God’s enemies vanquished, when He makes all things right.
In the meantime, He is using your present moment – with its tedium, its heartache, its uncertainty – to move you and your work toward a glorious finale.
So you can play your role with confidence, not in yourself but in the wisdom of the One who called you.
Persevere,
Paul Pyle
Discipleship Pastor