I finished the Old Testament!!! Yea!! What a journey it's been so far. And now I can't wait to be continuing the journey with the New Testament. The NT presents a different writing style, different topics, and different stories, and we finally get to the meet the man prophesied about and hoped for over and over again in in the Old Testament. I can't wait for the next several months of reading through these books of the New Testament. I hope you will continue with me on this journey.
As a celebration of the fact that I've finished the Old Testament and am now moving on to the New, I'm going to spend one day looking back over my journey through the Old Testament and reflecting on some of observations I've made so far. Along the way--every 40th day--I've reflected at specific moments in time, but today, I'm going to ponder some of what I've learned and what I've been thinking about regarding this spiritual discipline.
First, I continue to be amazed at the God I serve. He is just and forgiving. He loves the less fortunate, the oppressed, the poor. He asks us to be faithful to him, and when we are, he protects us. He is, in a word, amazing. As a child--and even in some Bible classes in college--I always heard that the Old Testament presents a different God than the New Testament--the God of the Old Testament is mean and hateful and then he gets baptized in the New Testament and becomes loving. I always heard that God in the OT seeks vengeance, destroys people, hates, and is jealous. In sum, we are to fear him out of our own fear of being destroyed, put to death, condemned to hell. However, my reading has not showed me this God at all. Yes, I recognize that God can punish and can destroy. He can be jealous, and he wants us to obey him. But the thing that is so often overlooked in these portrayals of God is that God, first and foremost, loves us. He isn't jealous for jealousy's sake. He doesn't call us to faithfulness just because he wants to be in control of us. He doesn't rule with an iron fist and make laws arbitrarily because he can. Rather, God loves us. He wants to protect us. He loves us. He loves us.
The best representation of this relationship, I think, is that of a parent to a child. As a parent, I want to discipline my children to teach them right from wrong and good from bad, but I don't like punishing them. In fact, I hate it. I dread it. But I love them. And God doesn't like to punish us either, as some would have us believe. It hurts him to do so. And through my reading and writing about the OT, I see God as a God of love. He doesn't want to hurt us. He wants to show us his love. And in the New Testament, he will do so in a way that will shock and surprise us all.
I've also really enjoyed reading about God's people. From well-known people like Joseph, Jonah, and Job to lesser known people like the prophets and the deaconnesses and the women who aren't often mentioned, I like to hear their stories. I am connected to these people. God chose Israel to be his people, and his relationship with them gives us a concrete representation of how he deals with his people. This nation is one he loves, and he expects things of them. He expects them to obey his laws, to love the weak, and to take care of the poor. He wants powerful people to help those less powerful. And I think this can be related to today as well and what he expects of us as individuals and our churches--and perhaps our government, too.
I've also re-discovered how the Bible basically has three different functions in terms of the structure: you have the narrative stories, the poetry and prayers of people, and then the prophecies in which God speaks to his people. The Bible itself, for the most part, is structured in this way, not chronological like seems logical to me. I think this structure is intentional, though, and we are given three different accounts, basically, of the same stories. These approaches allow us to see the Bible, hear the stories, and learn about the life of the Israelites from three different perspectives, which allows people to relate differently to all of them. What a wonderful study of rhetoric, literacy, and narrative. Maybe one day I'll pursue this approach. :)
Lastly, reading the Bible every day for 208 days has been quite the challenge. But then finding something to say and writing about it has been doubly hard. Life happens. Kids get sick. I get sick. The internet goes down. We travel, and I forget to take a Bible with me, and the place we're at doesn't have the internet. I just can't find the time. Other commitments come up. I work a full-time job, and this process typically takes me one hour from beginning to end. I also commute 2 hours a day, so at the end of the day when I get home from work, I may not have an hour to dedicate to this. Spiritual disciplines are hard. And I find this one to be extremely hard, too. But you know what? That's all right. God understands. He is sympathetic and forgiving and gracious when things don't go as planned (much more than humans are, I think). God just wants us to try--he wants us to get out of the boat like Peter and trust him that when we get out of our comfort zone and do something difficult, he will be there to catch us when we fall, to take our hand and pull us up out of the water. But, we must get out of the boat if we are going to walk on water. If we are going to see things anew.
So, I can't predict where the next part of this journey will go, but I appreciate you listening and interacting with me along the way. I appreciate you, readers, in more ways than you know. Whoever you are and wherever you live, thanks for reading. Some days, you are the only one who motivates me to complete this goal.
0 comments:
Post a Comment