Genesis 38: God Uses Imperfect People for a Perfect Plan

Introduction

"God specializes in using imperfect people to carry out perfect projects." Elder Junias Anane repeats this several times in his message, and he asks the congregation to write it down: "If you have forgotten everything else, write this down."

On this Sunday, October 18, 2026, MEISTAD in Cergy is in the middle of a two-month season of fasting and prayer. For several weeks, the preacher has been leading the church through the story of Tamar in Genesis 38. The previous Sunday, the church reflected on the seal, the cord, and the staff, those symbols of identity that Tamar presented to Judah and that changed the order of things. This message concludes the first part of the story, before the birth.

The question is simple: how can we know that God was behind the scenes in such a troubled story? Junias Anane gives four reasons, then draws from them a word for those who feel disqualified, for parents, and for young people.

Message outline

1. A fast that does not belong to the swift

The preacher starts from Ecclesiastes 9:11: the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to men of understanding, nor favor to men of skill, "but time and chance happen to them all."
Daniel 2 reminds us that God is master of times and circumstances. He influences them to favor those who trust in him.
"This prayer fast does not belong to the swift according to the world": it belongs to those who have placed their trust and their support in the God who changes times and circumstances.
This is the setting of the story of Tamar, which teaches, in his words, "the power of grace."

2. The story: condemned to be burned, then recognized

About three months after her encounter with Judah, he is told that his daughter-in-law has played the prostitute and that she is pregnant. Judah orders: "Bring her out, and let her be burned" (Genesis 38:24).
Tamar then sends word to her father-in-law: "I am pregnant by the man who owns these things." Judah recognizes the seal, the cord, and the staff, and declares: "She is more righteous than I, because I did not give her to Shelah, my son."
For the preacher, these objects are powerful symbols of identity. The bread and the wine of Communion are our symbols: they remind us that "there is now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus" (Romans 8:1).
At the birth, there are twins: one puts out a hand, the midwife ties a scarlet thread on it, but it is his brother who comes out first. "What a breach you have made!" He is named Perez, Pharez in Matthew 1. The other is named Zerah, Zara in the genealogy of Jesus.

3. God honored her faith and vindicated her

First reason: God was behind the scenes to honor this woman's faith. Tamar becomes pregnant for the first time in her life, after a single encounter, despite Judah's advanced age. The preacher reminds us that the church has claimed this blessing for the women and men who are waiting for a child.
Second reason: God gives her twins, Perez and Zerah. "It was surely to make up for the two husbands she had lost," and for the two sons Judah had lost.
Third reason: Tamar was vindicated. She was accused of causing the death of her husbands, treated as a cursed woman, a witch, when the Bible says that it was the Lord himself who struck down Er and Onan (Genesis 38:7-10).
Not only was she vindicated, she was honored: her son Perez became a direct ancestor of the Messiah. "This woman who almost got burned, God chose to include in the line of Jesus Christ." The Lord was not ashamed of her.
Tamar was destitute. The law of levirate marriage was violated, and those who should have defended her cause broke their promises. Even when human systems fail and injustice seems to triumph, God remains in control of our story.
"In these moments of injustice, let us not give up. In these moments of loneliness, let us not quit." Your story, however complicated or strange it may seem, "will not end in shame."

4. Tamar is not a model to imitate to the letter

The preacher is clear: nowhere is it written that God approved every detail of Tamar's actions. He names the matter plainly: an incestuous relationship between a daughter-in-law and her father-in-law. Judah and Tamar were ashamed of it.
But the Holy Spirit reveals that, "even in the midst of human weaknesses, God's promise continued to be fulfilled."
What we are going to reap in this season of fasting does not depend on our perfection. What God asks is that we humble ourselves: "Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God" (1 Peter 5:6).
"God does not need your story to be perfect in order to act." Perez was born, "and your Perez will be born": a marriage, peace in the home, a healing, deliverance from an addiction, the conversion of a child, housing, administrative papers in order, success in studies.
"With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible" (Matthew 19:26).

5. Do not judge those God is restoring

God entrusted his work to imperfect men. We will hear of falls and scandals among servants of God. The preacher pleads: "Let us keep our mouths out of it."
The Bible details David's imperfections, and then God says: here is a man after my heart (Acts 13:22). "Where you are busy talking, God has finished forgiving."
Jesus said it: it is not those who are well who need a physician, but the sick (Matthew 9:12). If a household is struggling, it is not because yours is doing well that you may judge it. "Let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall" (1 Corinthians 10:12).
Paul himself called himself the foremost of sinners (1 Timothy 1:15). "The complexity of your situation does not disqualify you from God's glorious plans." No story is too lost for God to redeem it.
Isaiah 61, which Jesus reads in the synagogue (Luke 4), describes his "specialty": healing the brokenhearted, comforting all who mourn, giving a crown of beauty instead of ashes. Our God specializes in turning into glory what the world calls scandal.

6. Perez chosen instead of Shelah

Fourth reason: Perez was God's choice instead of Shelah. Shelah was Judah's legitimate son, born of a recognized union, the only living son he had left. By human standards, he was the candidate: the "royal child," the "pure" line.
Perez, for his part, was born of a relationship that everyone was ashamed of. And yet God sets Shelah aside. "Nobody can explain this."
God does not need people's validation: "He does not hold a referendum." It is not "your skills will go with you," but "the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard" (Isaiah 58:8).
"My thoughts are not your thoughts, and your ways are not my ways" (Isaiah 55:8). What we overlook is often what God favors.

7. A word for parents and for young people

Many parents have put their hope in a "Shelah": the well-behaved child, good at school, always at church. The preacher tells how his own mother once prayed: "Lord, what kind of child have you given me?" Today she says: "He is the child God gave me."
While he was serving in Verneuil, during a service in Cergy, he gave a word of knowledge to a couple: the child they looked down on, the one who struggled at school, would be the one who would take care of them in their old age. "Let us avoid favoritism. God does not like it."
Whatever the circumstances of a child's birth, even if the father did not acknowledge him or you raised him alone, "his favor is on that child." Tamar did not need to send Perez and Zerah from one deliverance session to the next: it was God's choice.
To young people: never say to someone, "You are not in my category." "Do not speak of something whose end you do not know." As Job says: "God is great, and we do not know him" (Job 36:26).
The message ends with a declaration: "I am God's choice." And again: "Where I was called forsaken, I will now be called blessed."

Key takeaways

God was behind the scenes in Tamar's story: he honored her faith, gave her twins, vindicated her, and included her in the line of Jesus.
Tamar is not a model to imitate to the letter, but even in the midst of human weaknesses, God's promise continued to be fulfilled.
God specializes in using imperfect people to carry out perfect projects: the complexity of your story does not disqualify you.
God chose Perez over Shelah: his criteria are not ours, and he does not need the validation of men.
Do not judge, do not despise, do not show favoritism among your children: you do not know the end of the story.

Personal application

In which area of your life do you think your story is too complicated or too shameful for God to act in it?
What is your "Perez," what are you waiting for from God in this season, and are you carrying it in prayer with humility?
Is there a servant of God, a brother or a sister, about whom you are talking while God may already be restoring them?
If you are a parent, do you have a "Shelah" and a child you consider less? How can you look at them as God looks at them?
Can you declare today, thinking of what God says about you and not what people say: "I am God's choice"?

Verses cited

Frequently asked questions

What does "God was behind the scenes" mean in the story of Tamar?

For Junias Anane, several signs show that God was at work in this complicated story: he honored Tamar's faith by granting her a pregnancy after a single encounter, he gave her twins, he vindicated her when she was wrongly accused, and he chose her son Perez to enter the line of the Messiah.

Is Tamar a model to imitate?

No, not to the letter. The preacher points out that nowhere does the Bible say that God approved every detail of Tamar's actions. The Holy Spirit shows rather that, even in the midst of human weaknesses, God's promise continued to be fulfilled. What God expects is that we humble ourselves before him.

Why did God choose Perez instead of Shelah?

Shelah was Judah's legitimate son, born of a recognized union, and by human standards he was the obvious candidate. Perez was born of a relationship that Judah and Tamar were ashamed of. Yet God chose Perez, an ancestor of Jesus according to Matthew 1, because his thoughts are not our thoughts (Isaiah 55:8).