The Cardboard of Your Life

Have you ever wanted to start over? Most people at some point find themselves so deep in a mess that they want to scrap everything and try again. Years ago, a teacher gave each student a piece of cardboard—one side of a box, in whatever condition it came. The student’s job was to transform that piece into a motivational message.

Your life resembles the cardboard the teacher gave to her class. People who shaped you have already been printed on it. Tears and grease spots from your experiences already stained it. Matthew opens his Gospel not with a clean slate but with a long, messy list of names (Matthew 1:1–17). His family story arrives already covered with ink.

Brokenness We All Share

When you examine human history, you struggle to believe we truly learn from our mistakes. Starting over rarely produces a triumphant alternative ending. Like it or not, you are broken, just like every other human being on earth. That brokenness originates in the Garden of Eden when Adam disobeyed God and ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. As you look around the world and your own life, you may wonder if any hope remains for humankind’s story or your place in it.

Two thousand years ago in Judaea, God’s people were also broken. They held the greatest hopes when Moses led their distant ancestors out of Egypt, and God established a covenant with them at Mount Sinai. They inherited land promised to Abraham, the father of their nation (Genesis 12:1–3). God promised extraordinary blessings upon Israel as a tool to draw all nations to Himself. Seasons of blessing came, but disappointment prevailed. The people were exiled from that land, and it appeared that God’s promised blessings had dried up. By Matthew’s day, they had returned to the promised land but still struggled to see God’s blessings.

Forty-Two Generations of Broken People

In that tension, Matthew records a genealogical list spanning forty-two generations from Abraham to Jesus. This genealogy brings to the surface so many lives—some whose stories we know and many whose stories we do not. All of them were marked by brokenness. Many would have wondered in their own day if God had given up on His promise to redeem, restore, and reign over this world.

Step into the stories of Abraham, Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, David, and Bathsheba. You find people who have experienced suffering because of sin. Yet some also experienced surprising grace from God because they came to Him humbled by their brokenness and found blessing again.

Three Turning Points in God’s Story

When you examine the “success stories” embedded in this genealogy, they share similar turning points: leave what is broken, trust God’s plan, and cling to His long-range faithfulness.

First: Leave What Is Broken

Abraham left his idolatrous hometown. Rahab left her old way of life. They recognized their lives were broken, and they did more than merely feel it—they acted. Abraham wandered in an unknown land. Rahab hid the spies at great personal risk. In each case, leaving what was broken meant concrete obedience. Your life is also broken. The only way you will enjoy God’s grace is by leaving what is broken in your life—turning from sin and from self-reliance.

Second: Trust God’s Plan

Abraham did not yet have a son and never fully possessed the land God promised him. Yet he trusted God’s word and, as Paul later observes, “staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief” but was “fully persuaded that, what he had promised, he was able also to perform” (Romans 4:20-21). Rahab knew God would destroy Jericho and trusted Him when most of her city did not. Her home on the wall was spared because she believed. Trusting God’s plan meant resting in His promise even when circumstances seemed to contradict it.

Third: Cling to God’s Faithfulness

David longed to build a temple for the Lord in Jerusalem and enjoy the fullness of God’s presence there, but it was not yet God’s time. Still, David continued to long for that day, knowing he would enjoy God’s presence one way or another.

Similarly, we are easily overwhelmed by the constant stream of current events and notifications. We forget that God is playing what we might call the “long game.” When you look back at those forty-two generations culminating in Christ (Matthew 1:17), you can rest. You have left what is broken and trusted God’s plan. Now, by faith, you can continue to hope, looking forward with expectation to see God bring about His glorious plan of redemption, restoration, and reign.

Hope or Despair

If you leave, trust, and cling, you will not be shielded from all pain. However, you will be insulated from the kind of despair that crushes hope. As days fade into decades, what feels uncertain today gives way to the certainty that God is at work and uses all people and events for His glory.

There are also names in this genealogy of people who did not leave, trust, or cling. They rebelled and attempted to manage life as best they could independently. Their brokenness persisted, and apart from repentance, their ultimate destination is destruction. They will not share in the completed mission of God we call the gospel. Instead, they will suffer eternally in their brokenness, in the place the Bible calls the lake of fire. The stakes are not merely emotional—they are eternal.

Your Story in God’s Mission

Two thousand years have passed since Matthew wrote this list of forty-two generations. Countless more names and stories have been added. Every person has either responded in faith or remained in unbelief. Which option do you desire?

Picture yourself as a disciple of Jesus Christ who is not flustered by today’s news, not anxious because time moves too quickly, and not discouraged because life is too difficult. Why? Because the same God who guarded forty-two generations to bring Christ guards your story. You know your story connects to God’s mission—the gospel—because, like Abraham, Rahab, and others, you have chosen to leave what is broken, trust God’s plan, and cling to His faithfulness.

Will You Trust God’s Radical Grace?

God transforms scandal into salvation. The gospel tells us the wondrous story of how God’s covenant promises work through broken people. Will you trust God’s radical grace to work through your brokenness?

If you have never received Jesus Christ as your Savior, today is the day to leave what is broken in your life. Come to Him in repentance and faith, trusting His finished work on the cross and His resurrection for your salvation.

If you are a born-again disciple of Jesus, then continue to hope. Look forward expectantly, knowing that God’s promises will become reality. Be free from anxiousness and discouragement so you can serve the Lord fully, confident that the same God who wrote Christ’s long-planned line is writing your story into His redemption as well.

Related Material

• Transformative Trust: Seven Divine Benefits — unpacks how trusting the Lord reshapes fear and uncertainty into confidence and joy. 
• Fellowship With God: The Essence of True Life — explores how walking closely with God counters the creeping despair that brokenness can bring. 
• Wisdom through Relationship with God — shows how a worshipful relationship with God forms the wise, hopeful posture your devotional commends.