Included for a Purpose

By Pauline Youd

Included for a Purpose is the fifth and final book in the "for a purpose" series.
Prompted originally by a pastor who said, "Someone ought to write stories about all the people in the Bible who were adopted," Pauline Youd wrote Adopted for a Purpose, the stories of Joseph Moses, Samuel, and Esther (Abingdon 1986). Recently she republished that book as an Ebook and followed it with Crisis for a Purpose (Abraham, Job, Jeremiah, and Peter), Gifted for a Purpose (Miriam, Deborah, Abigail, Mary of Bethany, and Priscilla), and Warned for a Purpose (Eve, Achan, Lot, Samson, and Nebuchadnezzar).
Included for a Purpose contains the stories of Rahab, Ruth, Naaman, and Cornelius. Not part of God's nation Israel, they were nevertheless included in God's original and ongoing intention to include believers from every tribe, language, people and nation in His family. Of the four, only Cornelius sought a relationship with God, but present attitude cannot hinder God's faithfulness.
Although Youd wrote for little children in her "I Wonder" series for Pauline Books & Media, these new Ebooks are aimed at those too old for children's Bible stories but not yet ready to tackle a serious Bible study.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pauline Youd
• Release date: Jul 30, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476131351

Pauline Youd

I like to write, read, teach, sing, play the piano, swim, cook, play in the yard, and walk by the ocean. I prefer coloring books to plain paper, summer to winter, daytime to nightime, and morning to afternoon. I like large families, but I prefer to visit with one friend at a time. I love to study the Bible and discuss what God is doing in the world today, but I can't handle really scary adventure novels. I am more interested in people and animals than in rocks and plants. I tutor reading and writing and prefer second graders. I live with my husband Bill and cat Sasha in the center of California.

Book preview

Included for a Purpose

by

Pauline Youd

Copyright @2012 by Pauline Youd

Published by PaulineYoud at Smashwords

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Table of Contents

Whosoever Will May Come

The Sign of the Scarlet Cord

The Lady Who Married Her Boss

The Enemy Captain with the Terrible Disease

The Man Who Was Ready and Waiting

Red and Yellow, Black and White

WHOSOEVER WILL MAY COME

Oh, how I loved singing the hymns when I went to church on Sunday nights with my grandmother! The evening service, less formal than morning worship included audience participation. Anyone could call out the page number of a favorite hymn, and the song leader and accompanist would comply. One song I especially liked said,

"Whosoever will, whosoever will,

Send the proclamation over vale and hill.

‘Tis a loving Father, calls the wanderer home:

‘Whosoever will, may come.’" (Philip P. Bliss 1838-1876)

Even as a child, I knew I was one of the whosoevers that wanted to come to God, but I didn’t know that the invitation of that song is repeated throughout the Bible. God has always been on the lookout for whosoevers. In the first book, Genesis, even as God chose Abraham and made from him His special people, God promised Abraham that through his seed all the peoples of the earth would be blessed. (Genesis 12:3) In the middle of the Bible, God spoke through Isaiah to the captives of Israel, "…I will also make you a light to the Gentiles, that you may bring my salvation to the ends of the earth. (Isaiah 49:6) In the last book of the Bible, Revelation, heavenly beings sing to Jesus: … with your blood you purchased men for God from every tribe and language and people and nation. (Revelation 5:7) The God who repeats this whosoever" promise is the same God who created the world, and who sustains it in space.

Many people through the ages sought to know this Creator God. The people whose stories are told here are all Gentiles which means that they were outside the Israelite nation. Most had at least heard of God’s dealings with the Israelites, but were not privy to the sacred covenant and laws which guided the people of Israel. Therefore their stories are told from the viewpoint of their being outsiders observing God’s people, and seeing how God both blessed and disciplined them.

As you read their stories, you may not think these are the kinds of people God would want to include in His family. One was a defector who betrayed her own people; one, a poor refugee. Another was an enemy who had fought against the Israelites. Yet another was a man who suffered discrimination not only because of his nationality, but because he was a soldier in the army that occupied Israel. Each person came from a different country. Hundreds of years separated their lives. Two are men and two, women. Three of their stories appear in the Old Testament; the other, in the New Testament.