Now that was only a brief overview of those particular patriarchs.  However, even with that small examination into their lives I think I can draw a large similarity.

The first thing that strikes me about all these people is that, at least in man’s eyes, they aren’t anything special.   We have shepherds, carpenters, farmers, and the like.  The special thing about these guys seems to come down to one thing, and one thing only.  They did exactly what God told them to do.  Let me emphasize that one more time –  THEY DID EXACTLY WHAT GOD TOLD THEM TO DO.  No more, no less.  No matter how crazy it sounded, these guys did it. Build a giant boat to house every animal IN THE WORLD? Not a problem.  Attack an army three times your size with pitchers, torches and trumpets?  Sure!  March around this wall for a week and yell at it?  Absolutely.

Maybe I’m weird, but this sounds remarkably similar to a Dr. Suess story that I read to my children.  It sounds like Horton Hatches an Egg.  If you haven’t read it, it goes mostly like this: Horton the Elephant is walking by the tree and the lazy bird begs him to sit on her nest “just for a little while.”  He argues with her about the ridiculousness of the request, but eventually ends up on sitting on in the tree for her.  Now I know that God isn’t a lazy bird, but sometimes his directions seem just as strange.   Eventually the egg hatches and Horton is rewarded for his hard work and humiliation with a beautiful baby elephant bird. I know, I’m weird.

There is one other similarity I see in this story.  It’s between what Horton says and the nature of God.   Horton says over and over in the story “I meant what I said and I said what I meant, an Elephant’s faithful 100%.”  After spending this much time in Hebrews, I feel that my God is the same way.  “He meant what He said and He said what He meant, and my God is faithful 100%.”  I mean, in every story He is very clear on what he wants and when He isn’t taken at His word the consequences are pretty severe.  If you don’t get what I mean, just look back at Abraham when Sarah thought that God must be mistaken after he said she would have a child in her nineties.  They’re still fighting about that one.  If you need another example, just look at the Israelites.  They wandered in the desert for forty years because they didn’t trust God to defeat the nations already in the promised land.

Maybe that is oversimplifying things a bit, but being a Christian is simple.  I mean it even comes with an instruction manual!  So why does it seem so hard sometimes?