I am the apple of my Father’s eye I am sweet, overflowing, and beautiful I am protected by His hand and opened wide to let in light Given out to bring hope, I am useful Thoughts for the Day Genesis 1:22 God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.” Genesis 1:28 God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” Did you ever notice that there are only two things that God blesses and commands to multiply? It’s true. He blesses the creatures in the sea and the birds of the air, and He blesses the man and the woman. I think it’s interesting that He doesn’t bless the animals on the land or anything else that He created. I wonder why this is? Maybe because the creatures of the sea and the birds were intended to be food and therefore needed to be plentiful. I don’t know, but it’s kind of interesting.
I am silver refined in the fire I am shaped, I am hammered on the anvil of God I am slowly releasing the muck and the mire Each day that I wait I grow less and less flawed. I am a song in the blackest darkness A soft note of hope in the cold of the night I am a melody written by His hand A gentle harmony in the midst of the fight. Anthem Pt 2 I think it’s kind of funny that my mother-in-law sent me and my husband a list of 60-odd things that we are in Christ (from a woman they’ve been working with) the day before I wrote Anthem Pt 1. I guess God wants me to remember these things, too. My necklace is silver (the chain is), sort of. It’s kind of that silver that you get after it’s been in the shower a million times. But anyway, it holds the charm with the pearl. A long time ago (it seems) a dearly missed friend told me that I was a Psalmist. I really miss her wisdom and counsel. Her words have echoed in my mind for a long time. I’m not sure what a Psalmist is or what a Psalmist does. It seems that God is calling my husband into a difficult ministry; I hope that being a Psalmist is a way to support him as he prays to set the captives free! Other Notes In Genesis 1:3-4 did you ever notice that God created the light and the darkness (as well as the earth, plants, water, etc.) long before He created the sun and the moon and the stars? Those things didn’t get created until the 4th day! The light that God created was enough to make plants grow and to separate the waters. The sun and moon and stars were signs to mark seasons, and kind of as an afterthought to give the earth light. The light was already there. I wonder, if the sun and moon and stars weren’t there, would there still be light? I guess, short of God restructuring gravity, the tides would get really messed up… but what’s a small detail like that when He can speak and all of creation springs from His breath?
I think about the way I learned about the Bible and the stories I’m learning now, and I wonder how to convey everything I’m learning without totally confusing my littles. For example, the story of Adam and Eve has so much more richness and is so much deeper than the traditional story. There are details like the way God refers to Eve as “Ezer” which has such a rich and full purpose behind it (and it explains an awful lot about women and the way we tend to function). Or how Adam names Eve “Havvah” which means “snake” eternally reminding her of her greatest mistake, and how naming her after “the fall” is a way of demonstrating his “ownership” over her thereby fulfilling the statement that God made that Adam wouldn’t trust Eve anymore and would be over her even though she will always long to fulfill her role as ezer. Even small things like the way God made Adam and then placed him in the garden. Or things like the way God made light and dark before He made the sun and the moon. There’s so much I missed because I was so familiar with the story I didn’t really see the story anymore. Familiarity breeds contempt is the saying, and it’s pretty close to true. I don’t hold contempt for the stories, but I certainly don’t read them as closely as I should… or at least I didn’t. So what stories will I tell my children? I want them to develop a hunger and desire to look deeply into God’s word and to search out the meaning and what the text actually says instead of taking my word or anyone else’s word. And they’re up… so I’m off.
During lunch there’s a group of several girls who usually stay in my room and eat their food. Partially because we work on aspects of the game, and we talk about things pertaining to the class and how it’s going. And sometimes we get into interesting talks. Yesterday we ended up speaking about politics in religion. I think it started when they were speaking about how men had made themselves superior to women, and I told them the story of creation according to the Hebrew Bible, complete with a mini-lesson about the ezer and what Hassah means and how the roles were reversed. And somehow, the discussion ended up at the questions about 2 things: First, how do you know all this stuff? And second, how come you still believe in God if it seems like you’re constantly discovering the Bible’s not accurate? Here’s kind of what I said. I wish I had been clearer. I told them, first, that I grew up believing because it’s what my parents taught me. But eventually I had to figure out what I believed and why, all for myself. After I did that, I kept learning. Today, I’m digging into our Biblical roots so that I have a broader and deeper understanding of who God is and what I believe. As for the second thing…. Well, just because I find that the way I was taught is incorrect doesn’t mean that the Bible is incorrect. The translation we have is not perfect because it was politically influenced, and there are lots of words that we just don’t always know how to translate from Hebrew because Hebrew’s such a rich language with so many descriptive words. But even though I may find inconsistency in translation, underneath the foundational principle on which I rest my faith remains the same: God loves me and Jesus died to remove the guilt of my sin so that relationship could be restored between us. (That’s the part I wish I had been clearer on. Because of the whole “don’t push religion on our kids thing” I didn’t get that far into it. I just said that nothing I had discovered in my learning disproved or discounted the basics of what I believe.) Finding out the truth has made my belief in and understanding of God much deeper and richer. Realizing that the version of the Bible I read is not particularly accurate is frustrating, but not also not completely surprising. I would love to learn Hebrew and Greek so I could read our Bible in it’s original form (I’d like to read the Gospels in their original Hebrew form, but the copy we have of that is pretty rare). So, one day when things seems to be a little less chaotic, I want to study those languages. I want to know more. And I want to be more bold and more direct the next time my students ask me questions. I pray they keep asking.