God Draws Straight With Crooked Lines Part 1

So, I've been wanted to write on this for a long time.  It's just been taking shape in my mind in the past few days.  "God draws straight with crooked lines," is a quote used alot from Pastor Douglas Wilson.

What does this mean?  What does it mean to draw straight with crooked lines?  How is that even possible?  But let me ask this.  How can God love us when we push Him away at every turn?  How can we have a second chance at eternal life when we deserved death?  Why does God make caterpillars into butterflies?  Why does he make something ugly into something wondrous?

As we've touched on before.  We're all stories.  This life we're living in is a story.  Every story has a setback or a trial.  But the main character still seems to be able to get back up and become stronger because of it.  But I would like to point to a bigger story book.  Also known as the Bible.  Or the inspired Word of God.  That is a masterpiece.  We are the crooked lines, but that doesn't stop God.  He just keeps writing and laughing.  His plan is being fulfilled, no matter what we do to try to mess it up.

So, in this series of blog posts, I will be looking at different stories in the Bible that is a smaller story within the Ultimate Story that is God writing.

The first one is a story about king Hezekiah.  Found in Isaiah 39, this is the time when officials from Babylon visit the king of Judah.  And seeing this as an opportunity to impress these foreigners, Hezekiah threw wide his gates and showed them everything.  Everything.  This proud moment cost him dearly.

When the prophet Isaiah caught wind of this, he was sent by the Lord to make the following prophecy, "Behold, the days are coming, when all that is in your house, and that which your fathers have stored up till this day, shall be carried to Babylon.  Nothing shall be left, says the Lord.  And some of your own sons, who will come from you, whom you will father, shall be taken away, and they shall be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon."

Hezekiah messed up.  Big time.  He was haughty.  He shouldn't have done it, but yet, that doesn't stop God's plan. In the first chapter of Colossians, it says, "He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.  For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities-all things were created through him and for him."

God turned the foolishness of the king into a time of missionary work in Babylon.  The city of Babylon would witness many miracles, such as: Daniel surviving the lion's den and Shadrach, Meshach, and Abendego surviving the flames of the furnace.  God used that moment of pride to turn it into something that glorified HIM.