Meet God’s Girl…Tamar

Thank you for joining me on this journey of 31 days to living bravely. I would love to proudly proclaim it is easier to hit publish on each blog post than it was at the beginning of this series, but it is not. Honestly. Living bravely is a lifelong pursuit. I’m in it for the long haul. I hope you are too.

Yesterday I asked the question…Where Are The Brave Girls? Today we’re going to get to know one of them. Her name is Tamar.

Tamar is mentioned only once in the New Testament. She’s the first of the five women listed in the genealogy of Christ in Matthew 1. Her story begins in Genesis 38. I was going to write begins and ends in Genesis, but Word of God is living and active. The stories may be old, but what we can learn from them today can change us forever.

After reading Genesis 38, I’m feeling bad for Tamar. Are you? Her first husband is wicked and dies. Her second husband is wicked and dies. Her father-in-law doesn’t want to give her husband number three for fear that he’ll die next. She’s then blamed for their deaths and sent home to wait in shame.

Scripture doesn’t let us in on Tamar’s thoughts and feelings. Oh, how I wish it did. But we’re women. We can just imagine ourselves in that situation, can’t we? During this time in her life, Tamar’s greatest longing would have been for a child, a boy child. Tamar waited for a child with husbands one and two. She waited for husband number three to grow up. She was sent home to wait. “After a long time” Judah’s wife died and then he recovered from his grief. That, too, took time. That’s a lot of waiting!

How we live our lives in the waiting is a testimony of what we believe about God. The definition of belief is confidence in the Truth. What are you believing about God in your waiting? What does your waiting attitude say about what you believe?

Meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting. God’s Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don’t know how or what to pray, it doesn’t matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans. Rom 8:26

It’s easy to get tired in the waiting. I think that’s when we have the greatest opportunity to live bravely. Believing God. Trusting Him. Choosing to be patient when everything in us wants to push ahead and make our own way. Waiting is not passive. Waiting requires much from us. Waiting well is living bravely.

Tomorrow we meet Rahab.

 

Today is day 23 of 31 days of Living Bravely. The 31 day series is here.