Are you there God? It's me, Kara.

Day 11: Genesis 40-41

After I wrote that post yesterday—in which I was obviously feeling a little crabby—I decided to talk to my husband and get his take on the OT and the purpose of all these stories. He gave me several good ideas about how to think about the stories. One of them is that if you know the stories, you can make connections in the rest of the Bible and see how God often parallels various stories and lives.

One of the things he said that resonated with me the most was that as I read the OT, I should consider what the reading is telling me about God. In a way I have been doing this. God’s absence, for instance, from so many of the stories I’m reading is one of the things that was frustrating me. I expect God to be present and active in much of the reading. I mean, this IS the Bible! But you know what? The same way God is conspicuously absent from places in the Bible is the same way it often seems in our own lives. God seems absent. Sometimes it seems as if He’s not acting at all, at least not in any obvious way. After thinking about the OT in this way, I realize that it’s nice to know that sometimes God appears absent in the Bible, too. We know he’s there, of course, but the extent to which he seems involved ebbs and flows. I find this fact comforting. If he were always mentioned with every single story, I might feel even more distant from God because it would seem that he never acts in the same way he did in the Bible.

I wish that God would speak to me like he spoke to people back then. I mean, Joseph was able to interpret dreams in the name of God and even predict the future through them. Jacob wrestled with God, and with each encounter with God, He grew and changed. Others encounter God and hear his voice. Why did God change the way He communicates with people? Why can't He speak to us like He did back then? I would really like to hear him talk to me is all. To hear him talk back. to have a conversation. To not wonder if he's listening but to really know that he is there and that he cares.

I realize that one of the ways he talks to me is through scripture, which is one of the reasons I'm reading the Bible now. This experience has led me to appreciate

I'm glad to be learning more about God and how he speaks to his people. I like to actually "hear" (read) his voice--what he has to say back then and think about how it applies to me now. I hope you will consider listening to his voice, too.