Can you believe that I am in the sixth month of my World Race journey?? I can’t and it’s my journey! It has been an absolute roller coaster of feelings, emotions and experiences. This week as we were sitting in church with all the girls it dawned on me that though I have written many blogs there is still so very much that I have not shared. I don’t just mean about what my team and I have been doing, I mean about what I have been learning. When I embarked on this journey it was not just about going around the world to help people it was also (and more importantly, for me) about learning more about God and sharing His love with those around the world.
I know that this can be a difficult thing for people to talk about, but I would be denying such a large part, not only of this trip, but more importantly of what I am if I did not share some of what I have been learning about God. Please know that as I write about this, I am sharing what I have learned and observed, that I am open to conversations about differences of opinions or thoughts – so long as we can do so respectfully. If you don’t want to leave comments feel free to e-mail me [email protected], I would LOVE to know what you think about anything I write, really. And for those who are avid readers, I apologize if I have the same intro to many blogs to come in the next 5 months 🙂
As we began the race, way back in January, I felt compelled to read through the Old Testament. At first I was nervous because, to me, The Old Testament has always seemed scary. I thought it was full of long lists of genealogy, Moses wandering around from exile to exile, God hating the world he created, a bunch of violence and people living under the old covenant (needing to live by rules/laws instead of in the freedom of Christ). I had no idea how it could ever relate to my life today, I mean they didn’t even have electricity. But I believe that The Bible is all the Word of God. Let me tell you, that never has scripture felt so real to me as it has in these last 5-ish months.
One of the first lessons I learned was about application. It’s so funny how often we, myself included, get caught up in thinking that just because people WAY back in the day didn’t have as much technology and stuff as we have today that their lives were easier. Yet by the fourth chapter, there is tension in a marriage, and a brother killing his only brother: and this came from a family that wasn’t likely to have influence from other families (I’m aware there’s lots of debates on who was alive and inhabiting the earth when Adam & Eve were created, but that isn’t really super important to me). Then a few chapters later there is so much incest and corruption that God wipes out the entire earth (in enters Noah & the ark). Shortly after there is incest between daughters and their father (the daughters got the dad drunk to sleep with him, wrap your head around that). And we aren’t even half way through Genesis.
So even without televisions, radios, porn, internet, computers, telephones and cell phones, life was just as complicated. All the way back then there were problems with alcohol, family discord, affairs, incest, rape, children being offered as sacrifices, gambling, and anything else that people struggle with today.
For me it was a reminder that just because we live in different styles of houses, have fancier furniture, and more technology, that we can learn a lot from the stories of The Old Testament, that they can in fact apply to our lives today because what makes each of us human hasn’t changed; just the environment that we are in.
