Two thoughts while reading Chronicles

This morning I began reading the two books of the Chronicles again.

When reading these books, it’s easy to have your eyes become glassy and your mind distracted as you read name after name of unknown people.  How can I read these verses in fresh ways so that the Lord uses this morning in redemptive ways in my life?

Two thoughts came to mind as I read:

• God knows.  The names may be unknown to me, but they are known by God and are part of God’s redemptive story.  These are the men and women that God used through the ages to accomplish His purposes.  The stories may be unknown to me, but they are known to God and I do well to give thanks that not only are the names preserved in His Word, but that their lives and stories are preserved in God’s mind.
• Live life with the end in mind.  On a few occasions in the opening chapters of 1 Chronicles (the “names” section), brief comments are made about individuals — “Now these were the kings who reigned in the land of Edom before any king of the sons of Israel reigned” (1:43), “Tamar [Judah’s] daughter-in-law bore him Perez and Zerah” (2:4), “Six [children] were born to [David] in Hebron, and there he reigned seven years and six months.  And in Jerusalem he reigned 33 years” (3:4), and “…Tamar was their sister” (3:9).  Some of the stories are known to us today, some were undoubtedly known by the readers of the Chronicler but forgotten today, and some perhaps were unknown even at the time of the writing of this book.  Yet what is known about these stories should be sobering and encouraging to today’s reader.  Some individuals did not fare well in the beginning, or in the end (e.g., the kings of Edom).  Others did not fare well at the beginning, but did in the end (e.g., David).  We do well to be faithful to cultivate holy living.  We will be wise when we think of and live towards the final accounting before the Lord — “what will be the epitaph of our lives?” — and live accordingly.  And when we fail and sin, we do well to cling to the grace that God makes available through Christ.  They looked forward to that grace and we look back to it, but we both find our hope only in God’s kindness and mercy.