What does it all mean?

Today, as I was reading in Luke, I was struck by a passage that my eyes have glazed over countless times. You may not believe it, but I was arrested by the genealogy of Jesus. Not by the names that we know like David, Jessie, Abraham, or Adam, but by all the other names. Names of men that we know nothing else about.

As I sat reflecting on the passage I was struck by the fact that these men lived entire lives about which we know absolutely nothing. They were born into families that we know nothing about. They went through formative experiences as they were growing up that we know nothing about. They fell in love with women that we know nothing about. They had weddings that we know nothing about. They had children that we know nothing about. They suffered diseases and hardships that we know nothing about, and they died in ways that we know nothing about. Their entire lives are lost to us, but we do know that they were an indispensable link in the chain of life that produced the Savior of the world.

These men had no idea about the real significance of their lives. They lived and died without an inkling of how their lives fit into the grand narrative of history. We too have no real idea of why we are here and what our lives mean. We seldom understand the past, only occasionally grasp the significance of the present, and have no capacity to predict, let alone understand, the future. We live all our lives like men shooting in the dark, barely comprehending what we are shooting at and rarely knowing if we even hit it.

The beauty of knowing God is that He knows the future. He knows why we are here, each of us individually. He knows the work that He has prepared for us to do. He knows the gifts He has given us. He knows what it all means, and He promises to be with us in the midst of it and work it all together for good. All this is just to rephrase something my father used to say: "I don't know the future, but I know the one who knows the future."