Kethuvim

The more I study the Bible, the more I realize that how no words are wasted in it. In the creation story, we read of God entering into a chaotic atmosphere (the Hebrew tohu vavohu) and bringing order to it. By bringing order to the chaos, God set up a great many systems and patterns to the world. Patterns such as, erosion, adaptation, growth, life, and death. It's the last three that I want to deal chiefly with.

If you look throughout all of creation, there is a continuity to all of it. No creature, including humans, is exempt from the natural order of things. It's almost planting time in Indiana, which means that farmers will soon plant millions of seeds in the ground an inch deep and then let nature take its course. These seeds will be "born," grow, and then die. I'm having a son, my first child, in a few months. That child will be born, grow, and then, God willing at an old age, die. The same goes for me, my wife, my family, and everyone else on the planet. We can't escape this.

This all sounds so morbid and negative, but it isnt, it's just the way God created us and everything around us. In the words of Donald Miller, "we are all just getting born, just growing up, just dying off." There's something beautiful to think about how connected to nature we really are. God made everything beautiful, but that beauty has to fade and disappear in order to give way to new beauty. I'll watch the soybeans grow in a few months, become full and green and beautiful, and then wither and die. But in a year or so, the beauty will return.

Jesus wasn't exempt from this either. He was born, lived the most beautiful life in history, then died. However, he completed the cycle by returning to beauty for eternity when he walked out of his grave. I love the fact that everything in the universe is so connected, including God being connected to it all as well.

I recently got back from a trip to West Virginia. I spent a great deal of time hiking and just taking in the beauty of nature. I came across this tree on one of my hikes and it reminded me of...well...me. I haven't been myself for about a year. Ministry has the ability to ruin a minister's spiritual life pretty quickly. I know that sounds weird, but until you've been a minister, you can't know what I mean, so I won't try to explain it.

This trip was what I needed. It gave me a chance to get away from all of the crap of life and focus on creation and the God who created it. It's amazing what happens when you take the time to get away from distractions. Anyway, when I saw this tree it made me think of what my life feels like at times. This tree is just a gigantic jumbled mess. It has numerous vines hanging on it, which go a hundred different directions. If you're a minister, you know exactly what I mean. We're almost constantly pulled in a million different directions until we don't know which end is up.

I know all of this sounds negative, but let me finish. I realized after thinking about it for some time that all of the stuff hanging on it actually lends more beauty to the tree. Without all of the vines hanging on it, it would just be a normal tree. It never would have caught me eye and made me want to photograph it. I think the real challenge of life is to find beauty in all of our mess. The key to this is to constantly remember that we are never without the Beautiful One. His beauty meets our mess and makes something unique and wonderful. I learned this past week in West Virginia that when we take time to listen, God responds and shows how beautiful he really is. Hey God, I've missed you, I'm glad to be back.

I took this picture on a cold, foggy morning in West Virginia. It's totally creepy. All it needs to complete the creepiness is two identical twin girls saying, "Come play with us, forever and ever and ever."

I was studying Isaiah today, which by the way is one of the best books in the Bible, and I came across a passage that seemed to jump of the page. Isaiah 63:8-9 says this:

For he said, "Surely they are my people, children who will not deal falsely." And he became their Savior. In all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them; in his love and in his pity he redeemed them; he lifted them up and carried them all the days of old.

We talk all the time about the fact that we serve a personal God, but do we really know what that means? Are our minds capable of grasping the idea of a being big enough to create the universe, yet small enough to care about being personal with his creatures? What does it mean for God to be personal? In order to answer that last question, we have to look at what it means for us to have a personal relationship with other people. We have to spend time with them, we have to exhibit great care toward them, we have to pour our lives into them. If this is what it means for us to have a personal relationship with someone, then it follows that the same things apply to God having a relationship with his creation. However, it seems that just spending time with someone and caring about them, doesn't necessarily mean we have a personal relationship with them. So what completes a relationship with someone and moves it from being an acquaintance to a loving relationship?

I think the answer lies in the bold print of our passage. It says that in all of Israel's afflictions, God was afflicted. To love someone completely and have an intimate relationship with them means that we are afflicted when they are afflicted. The passage says that when we hurt, God hurts also. We don't serve an impersonal God who sits back and just watched stuff happen. He's actively involved with us, even to the point of taking our hurts on himself. The Bible refers to God at times as the God of Comfort, I never really understood the breadth of that statement until I understood that when I am hurting, there is a Creator that is hurting as well.

"Don't worry about a thing, 'cause every little thing's gonna be alright."

I can't tell you how often I listen to this song by Bob Marley, and I can't tell you how often I need to hear it. I'm a worrier by nature and I need to hear the "three little birds" saying this to me. It seems to ring with something Jesus said once,

"Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own."

The fact is that worry leads to nothing but increased blood pressure and a massive coronary. Let Jesus' message (and Bob's) wash over you. Do you have financial problems? Understand that God is faithful. Having family problems? Don't worry about a thing, every little thing is gonna be alright. Been sold out by friends or betrayed? Don't worry about it, because God will never leave you or forsake you.

Let the three little birds and Jesus speak to your heart as you struggle for the faith to get you through your problems.

So my wife and I have started a new tradition on Sunday nights. We watch C-Span. I wish I was kidding, but seriously, we watch C-Span. On Sunday nights they have a half-hour segment of the British House of Commons weekly Prime Minister grilling. If you've never seen it, believe me when I tell you that your life is woefully incomplete. It is comedy in its highest form. It's like watching a bar fight in which no punches are thrown, and where the participants use sharp language and dripping sarcasm to knock the other person to the ground.

The proceedings go something like this: any member of Parliament can get up and ask a question of the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister then has to get up and answer the question posed to him. In between are random shouts of "hear-hear" if people agree and "AAhhoofdsdfksfcfksjdkflj" if they don't. The beautiful thing about it is that the questions are generally posed in a fairly sarcastic form. Last night, one of the Parliament members accused the Prime Minister of not being able to read. The Prime Minister then got up and referred to the man as "the right honorable gentleman" which in British-speak means, "gay cowboy" or something like that.

If you've never watched the House of Commons, do it. It's like watching a circus, sans midgets and other creepy carny folk. Plus, it's nice to see a government where policy makers are held accountable for the things they say.

In most churches, I've heard sermons preached about living life on the mountaintop and living life in the valley. What about living life somewhere in the middle? I've never seen a book written about that or a sermon preached on it. Are we just supposed to know how to live life when things aren't great, but they aren't that bad? I'm feeling mediocre right now. I'm not great, but I'm not bad either. I feel like I'm living in an earthly purgatory. I'm sort of waiting for either an ascent or a descent, and in the meantime doing nothing more than surviving through habit and routine.

How do we find God in these times of life? It's easy to find God when you're really up, and it's even fairly easy to find God when you've hit bottom, but it seems more difficult in the middle. What's the answer? Do I go skydiving or play chicken with an oncoming train to break the monotony? Do I find a mountain and sit on it while composing John Denver-ish poetry about how I see God in the trees? There are no easy answers and I'm not sure the Bible is black and white on the issue either (yes, I'm suggesting that the Bible isn't black and white). I know I should pray more and read my Bible more, I've heard those answers since I was a kid; but what about when you don't really feel like doing that? Man I wish Joel Osteen would write a book that would give me the answers. Of course, he never lives in the middle because he's constantly in God's favor.

Seriously, I'm not great at reading ultrasound pictures or anything, but I can definitely see the ghostly face of my son. I've come to the conclusion that it looks similar to the Shroud of Turin. I wanted to ask the ultrasound tech, "What is the post-crucifixion, pre-resurrected Christ doing in my wife's womb?" I didn't think she would get it or find the humor in it like I do.

Everything is healthy, although I'm a little concerned about the size of his naughty bits. Seriously, you can't see them in this picture, but it took three different angles for us to see them. Let the locker room laughing begin...sorry son.

We got to see his jaw moving up and down during the ultrasound. I like to think he was saying something like, "Hey guess what, I'm trying to sleep, leave me alone." He didn't stop moving the whole time. If this is any indication of things to come, I need to start learning how to live on 30 minutes of sleep a day.

I still think he looks like my wife. We're excited that yet another homely, frumpy, Polley male is entering the world. It wouldn't surprise me at all to see him emerge from the womb looking like GrizzlyAdams with a full back and chest of hair. Ladies and Gentlemen, behold the next great musical innovator (a real musical innovator, not just someone who thinks they are...like Kanye West).

Last night was the 78th Annual Academy Awards, or as I like to call them, the 78th Annual Crippling Boredom Awards. Holy crap this is a boring show. The only redeeming quality this year, during the 15 minutes I watched of the thing, was John Stewart, who is an absolute master of dripping sarcasm.

The Academy Awards are a time every year for a bunch of rich celebrities to get together and stroke each other's egos and have someone pat them on the back and tell them "good job," and hand them a new mantle sculpture. Apparently millions of dollars per picture doesn't stroke the ego enough anymore.

There are many things I hate about awards shows, especially this award show. First, there's the meat-market known as the red carpet where people watching on TV can live vicariously through their favorite star by yelling at the screen, "I love what Charlize is wearing this year." It's as if the stars honestly care what Betty Ann Provost from Sheboygan, Wisconsin thinks of their outfits. Along with this red-carpet fun, you get the leathery Joan Rivers and her equally leathery daughter commenting on what everyone is wearing. Thanks for your opinion ladies, here's a quarter for your next face-lift.

Then there's the acceptance speeches. It gets so old hearing everyone say the same thing. "Thank you to the Academy (whoever the crap that is), and thank you to (insert the names of everyone you have ever met in your entire life, including Ira the Deli owner, who's Pastrami on Rye was the inspiration you needed to go on when you wanted to give up hope on humanity)." "Oh, and thanks to my husband/wife/life partner for sitting at home pining away while I spent the better part of three years neglecting you and kids so that I could win this award."

Finally, you know there is something wrong with the world when Joachin Phoenix doesn't win crap for his incredible portrayal of Johnny Cash, and a band called "Three-Six Mafia" wins an award for a song about a pimp. Hey Johnny, if you're up there listening, I apologize on the part of humanity for that injustice.

The thing that kills me are the people that hang on everything that happens at these awards, as if their very existence depends on whether or not "Capote" wins an award. Aaaahhhh...I feel better.

I was flipping through channels again last night (I really need to stop doing that) and came across my favorite aforementioned religious channel. Every Sunday night, the chapel service from Pensacola Christian College (Our motto: "Jesus never smiled so neither do we") airs on Lesea broadcasting. I happened to catch the service just as the preacher got up to speak. He gets up and he gives the usual guilt trip deal to the students. You know what I mean, "This may be your last day on earth, you may never have another chance to accept Jesus blah, blah, blah." I've heard this kind of crap so much that it doesn't even make me mad anymore. However, what he said next did make me mad. "If you have accepted Jesus before, but have hardened your heart to him, the same warning goes to you. If your heart is hardened (is that a clinical problem by the way?) you may make it through the next week without incident, but you may miss God's final call to you."

I let that last statement sink in and listened to his follow up on it. Let me tell you what he meant by that. He was suggesting that God has a limited number of times that he "calls" you (hopefully not collect, because I'm not accepting the charges). If you don't accept any of these "calls" to you, then God basically gives up and moves on to the next person. I was sitting there, jaw on the floor with expletives running through my head at an alarming rate, thinking "Has this guy ever heard of Jesus?"

I'm not sure how you can read a story like the parable of the lost son and say something like he said. In that story, I see a God who pursues those who abandon him. I don't see a Father that says, "You disowned me too many times, I give up." I don't find this idea anywhere in scripture. I have so much I could say pertaining to all of this, but I want to know what everyone thinks.

So I was perusing my 15 channels the other night and I came across, what I believe to be the most humerous channel on television, Lesea broadcasting. If you know nothing of Lesea broadcasting, it could be best described as the lesbian step-sister of TBN (Editor's note: I have no idea what that means, but it sounded funny). Anyway, the other night a man by the name of Mike Murdoch, or as he's known by the Mafia, "Mikey Hair-dye", was on and he was, of course, speaking of prosperity. I say "of course" because that's all he ever talks about. He said something interesting during his diatribe that piqued my interest a bit. He said, "Don't let anyone tell you that you can't have nice things. Anyone that says that you have to do without is an idiot."

I've mentioned before that I have a pretty finely-tuned crap detector. After that statement, it was going off so loudly that my neighbor came over in sponge rollers asking me to shut my "pretty little mouth." Upon hearing Mikey say those things, my first thought was, "You know, he's right, the Bible never said anything about having to do without...oh wait...no...I seem to remember Jesus saying something to the effect of, 'deny yourself.'" To be honest with you, I think it's ok to have nice things at times, as long as those things don't become your god. However, he was advocating that whatever our heart desires is ours as long as we send in our "seed money" so that God will bless us.

When Jesus said, "deny yourself, take up your cross daily and follow me," he was saying that if we follow him, we no longer live our lives by our wants and desires. Our life is not our own. Our life is to be lived by what God wants for us, not what we want for us. I'm tired of hearing these prosperity guys talking about the spiritual life like it has everything to do with us. With their "theology" God is nothing more than a high-yield mutual fund where you put a certain amount of money in, and he multiplies it so that you can have a vacation home in Colorado.

What does this say about our brothers and sisters around the world who are striving to live for God, and as such, are being imprisoned, killed, or live in extreme poverty? By Mikey's line of thought, they are doing something wrong. They're not "planting their seeds" in the right area, so God isn't blessing them. America is the only place where you will hear this message preached. Let's face it, these teachings are nothing more than using the Bible to justify extravagant living. It's a copout so that these guys won't have to deny themselves.

I believe I wrote briefly about the point that you can't manufacture community in a church, it just happens as a special grace from God. I believe I also spoke about how churches continue to try and manufacture community and it usually turns into nothing more than a 6-month trainwreck.

Well, I got a catalog in the mail today from Group Publishing, whose company slogan should be "The company that cheese built." Their stuff is, for the most part, complete and utter crap. I was thumbing through the endless pages of mindless curriculum and I came across an add for a curriculum and on the top of the page, I found the emblazoned 56-point font words, "Build Commuity in Your Church." My bullcrap detector about knocked me out of my chair as soon as I finished reading that phrase. But wait, there's more. Under that gigantic farcical statement was this three-point add on: Welcome New Members, Enhance Your Small Groups, Easy and Effective Outreach. As if that wasn't enough, in Ron Popeil style I tell you, "But wait, there's more." This curriculum is apparently "Stuffed with 13 weeks of tasty, life-changing experiences." I'll have to be honest with you when I say that I have no desire to know what it means to have a tasty, life-changing experience. Apparently along with Bible study, you spend a half-hour marinating a Jesus-shaped chicken and then expound on what the Holy Spirit smells like.

I'll have to tell you that my experience with most curriculum has done nothing for my life other than making me want to take my own. How can a curriculum foster community? It can't. As I said in a previous post, real community takes time and grace; it takes people who are willing to lay down their lives for one another. It can't be accomplished when people come together in the hopes of having a "tasty, life-changing experience."

What does it cost to have real community in your church? Not your life, just 70 bucks...and, oh yeah, your soul.

"Take a census of all the congregation of the people of Israel, by clans, by fathers' houses, according to the number of names, every male, head by head."

God instructs the leaders of Israel at the beginning of the book of Numbers to take a census of their people. When we think census, we think about strange people in ties showing up at our doorstep every few years to count how many people live in the United States. All we think about is the numbers they are looking for. However, what is a census? In a census, they ask many questions to try and gauge things like income, number of children, and that sort of thing. They don't just come to the house and count how many people live in the US.

By asking the Israelites to take a census of their people, is it possible that God was asking them for more than just numbers of people? By asking questions of their fellow Israelites, they were finding out more about their countrymen.

As a minister, I know quite a bit about some people in my congregation. I know the good, the bad, and the ugly about some of the people. This has only happened because I have invested my time in them to get to know them. I'm a part of a small group, and we have become very close. We've been meeting for three years now and, in that time, we have learned a lot about one another. We know each others' good points, as well as bad points. We know each others' struggles and triumphs.

It seems to me that true community can only happen if we are willing to take a census of those around us. We can only have real community when we invest in the lives of others. It takes time, it takes commitment to one another, and it takes honesty to make it happen. You can't force real community. Too often churches try to force community, and what comes out is a half-baked version of community where no one knows anything about anyone past the surface. Real community flows out of love and a desire to get to know your brothers and sisters. Real community is a grace from God, you can't force it, it just has to come from him.

Take a census of your brothers and sisters. Invest your life into them because you love them. You'll never have joy in the Church without it.

One of the things that has bothered me about The Church for a long time is that it seems to be anemic when it comes to community. When I read the account of the early Church in the book of Acts I always end up sighing and say something like, "I want to be a part of that." Apparently a lot of other people in that day wanted to be a part of it as well, because the text in Acts says that The Church added to its number daily. It says that the people of the early Church had everything in common and no one claimed that anything else was his own. They ate together, prayed together, worshipped together; they truly had community. However, it seems to me that today's "Church" looks more like this: we come together, sit together, shake hands for two minutes, exhange small talk, half-sing a few songs, listen to a sermon that we don't comprehend, and then go to our respective homes and repeat the process a week later. That couldn't be further from real community.

Acts says that the people enjoyed fellowship. The word "fellowship" has lost pretty much all of its meaning today. When we say fellowship, we immediately conjure up images of pot-lucks and ice cream socials, youth group trips and chili suppers. The sad truth is that these things have nothing to do with fellowship. These should just be by-products of fellowship, not fellowship itself. The Greek word for fellowship actually means "brotherhood." To have real fellowship within the church, we have to be a brotherhood. This means that we live "all for one and one for all." The New Testament writers knew what they were doing when referring to their fellow believers as "brother" and "sister." These weren't just words they decided to use, it was the truth. They lived in community even with all of their faults, bumps, bruises, scars, and crap. They didn't all get along, but they were admonished to love one another anyway as Christ loves the Church. That's so beautiful, there's nothing more beautiful than two enemies who make a conscious choice to love one another even in disagreement. They decide to be brothers even though they disagree. But what does all of this mean for us in the 21st century? In a couple of days, we'll explore what it might mean to have real brotherhood within the Church today.

In Exodus 27:20-21, God instructs the Israelites to put a light in the tent of meeting and that the light is to be lit with "clear oil of beaten olives." If you know anything about cooking, you know that extra virgin olive oil is the first pressing of the olives and yields a greenish- yellow oil. The more pressings the olives go through, the clearer the product becomes. God tells the Israelites that they are to use only clear oil for lighting the lamp in the tent of meeting? Why clear oil? Why not the first and finest pressing of the olives? Lawrence Kushner states this as the reason.

It's because you just can't get the real clear and pure stuff until they pound the hell out of it (or you). We have a classic rabbinic teaching drawn from Psalm 51:19: "The offering to God is a contrite spirit..." The rabbis teach that the ultimate sacrifice is our smug expectation that we can do it alone, that we are in control of our own destiny. Suffering reminds us that we are not and, in so doing, purifies us. Anguish is simply a necessary precondition for the purification of the fuel required for the Tabernacle.

Suffering and anguish are all that can lead us to life and purity. The olives must endure a pounding of immense proportions in order to render their purest oil. We must endure much through trial and suffering in order to grow and be pure. Here's to allowing God to "pound the hell out of" us; pound out all of the impurities and all of the junk to render us pure and holy.

Mandy and I went to the doctor yesterday and all seems to be well with our human larva. It apparently doesn't appreciate the microphone thingy the doctor uses to hear the heartbeat, because it moves everytime she hits the right spot. I'm assuming it is perfectly content in its sack-o-fluid and doesn't want to be disturbed while it's reading, pondering existential quandries, or wondering why it is growing a third arm or has two butts.

In about a month, we'll find out the identity of the aforementioned larva. We were reading somewhere that they now have ultrasounds in 2-D, 3-D, or 4-D. I understand 2-D and 3-D, but what in the world is 4-D? Do they show you, not only the baby, but a vast other universe inside my wife's womb? I can just hear the doctor now, "Ok, there's the baby...there's its twang, it's a boy...and here's the constellation 'Uterine 5'." It should be an interesting doctor visit to say the least. All I know is that if William Shatner is dwelling within my wife's uterus somewhere, I'm not going to be happy.

I was sitting at home watching a show on TV that doesn't suck, when a commercial for one that does suck came on. It was a commercial for the new Survivor show. I think it takes place in Panama (or at least a Hollywood set that looks like Panama) or something. The new "twist" (please notice the quotes) is something called "Exile Island." Apparently one "castaway" at a time will have to stay on this island alone (which is due punishment for them agreeing to be on such a mind-numbingly crappy show in the first place), and try to survive. The commercial was hilarious because as it was describing this new facet to the game, it said something like, "On this island, they can find the key to winning the game...IF THEY SURVIVE!" This obviously begs the question, "Survive what?" Can they survive not being eaten by the camera crew, production team, and the team of medical doctors on the other side of the island? I'm sure the show would just let someone die off on screen.

Here's the reason I hate this show. These people aren't surviving anything. All it means is that the winner is the one who can go the longest eating worm larvae and rat pelvis or something. Who cares? Millions of people around the world have to endure that everyday and no one gives a crap. This has to be the most anti-climactic and boring show on television. There's no drama whatsoever. No one is going to die in this show, everyone will survive. If they want to do this show right, they need to drop 10 frumpy ignorant white supremacists in the middle of Compton, California with nothing more than their beer guts, and the clothes on their back and see how long they last. The last one standing wins...until he gets shot in the face. This format would solve a couple of problems. One, the name "Survivor" would actually mean something, and two, it would get rid of 10 morons. Maybe I should write to the network and make the suggestion.

I came across this prayer in a book titled, "The Book of Jesus." It is a collection of writings by numerous authors concerning Jesus. I think this would be a good prayer to incorporate daily. What do you think?

"O God, who has proven your love for all humanity by sending us Jesus Christ our Lord, and has illuminated our human life by the radiance of his presence, I give you thanks for this your greatest gift.
For my Lord's days upon the earth:
For the record of his deeds of love:
For the words he spoke for my guidance and help:
For his obedience unto death:
For his triumph over death:
For the presence of his Spirit within me now:
I thank you, O God.
Grant that the remembrance of the blessed Life that once was lived out on this common earth under these ordinary skies may remain with me in all the tasks and duties of this day. Let me remember--
His eagerness, not to be ministered unto, but to minister:
His symphathy with suffering of every kind:
His bravery in the face of his own suffering:
His meekness of bearing, so that, when reviled, he reviled not again:
His steadiness of purpose in keeping to his appointed task:
His simplicity:
His self-discipline:
His serenity of spirit:
His complete reliance upon you, his Father in heaven.
And in each of these ways give me grace to follow in his footsteps.
Amen.

I swear that I'm not obsessed with suffering. I don't like it anymore that anyone else, but for some reason, I keep happening onto these different passages concerning suffering. I can't get away from them. I come across them in the Bible, I come across them in other readings, I can't help it. I guess these passages stand out to me so much, because they fly in the face of the American Prosperity Gospel that is so prevelant today. Actually, most American Christians are raised on this type of thought and theology. It isn't all as overt and satanic as Joel Osteen's message or anything, but it's there nonetheless. For example, none of my preachers growing up ever claimed that God wanted you to be rich and powerful, but they still taught that, overall, God wanted you to be happy. So I grew up thinking that God wanted all to be happiness, and when something didn't make me happy, it was Satan's fault.

I've been studying Isaiah for quite awhile, and he touches upon this idea many times. I came across one I couldn't ignore this morning. These words I'm about to show you come from the King Hezekiah. He had been struck with an illness and then healed by God, and his words here are commenting on his situation.

"But what can I say? He [God] has spoken to me, and he himself has done this. I will walk humbly all my years because of this anguish of my soul. Lord, by such things men live; and my spirit finds life in them too. You restored me to health and let me live. Suely is was for my benefit that I suffered such anguish. In your love you kept me from the pit of destruction; you have put all my sins behind your back."

I wonder how these prosperity guys handle a passage like this. My guess is that they skip right over it because there's no way to refute Hezekiah's words and change them to mean something else. They sure as crap don't preach a passage like this. Hezekiah not only says that God was directly responsible for his suffering, but he say that "by such things men live." He is essentially saying that we cannot be whole and alive without suffering and anguish. He then has the audacity to blame God for his anguish then turn around and talk about God's love. This is just beyond fascinating to me, because it goes against our natural human reactions to adversity. Our first reaction is to blame God for his absence and then say things like, "God has a plan in all of this," although we know when we say it that we're full of crap. We never think of God sending suffering our way as his way of loving us. We feel punished. Yet Hezekiah (and it seems everyone else in the Bible) see it as a loving Father desiring growth from his people. I could go on forever with this stuff, but I want to hear what you all (3 of you) have to say.

I was studying in "Five Cities of Refuge" again this morning and came across something I had never thought about. To be honest, it made me feel a little bit better about something that has bugged me about God for a long time. The passage of study was the "Akedah" or "Binding of Isaac." This is the story where God inexplicably tests Abraham and tells him to go and sacrifice his son on Mt. Moriah. Just as an aside, "Moriah" in Hebrew means "awe-ful."

This story has always bugged me. Why couldn't God choose a test for Abraham that didn't include the near-slaughtering of his child? Why not have him walk to the nearest watering hole and tell him to walk across it? Why not tell him to spit a loogie in the air and tell him to make it, by faith, levitate in the air? I've never understood it until I studied this morning.

Abraham is standing on a mountain with a knife raised in the air, ready to drive it through Isaac, when a messenger of the Lord stops him. In order to understand the full depth of what is going on here, you have to look at all of the other cultures around at that time. Every other culture had "gods" that required infant or child sacrifice to appease them. God had to do this to show Abraham that he was a different god. He was the true God because he was so merciful and wasn't going to require this horrific act of his people. Sacrifice animals, not people.

For me, this helps me to see more of God's true nature. He isn't sick, he's merciful. I understand that he sent his only Son to be a sacrifice for the universe, but Jesus had the choice to go to the cross. He was human and could have backed out, but he didn't, so the argument that God sending his only Son to die being proof of God's sickness is irrelevant here.

This study this morning just reinforced my love for God and his mercy. Hopefully it does the same for yours.