Writing Through the Bible in a Year

Genesis 24:1-26:5

“Please tell me whose daughter you are.” Genesis 24:23

Genesis 20:1-23:20

“The LORD visited Sarah as He had said, and the LORD did to Sarah as He had promised. And Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son in his old age at the time of which God had spoken to him.” Genesis 21:1-2

Today’s reading was so special to me this morning! Every word was like balm to my soul. Things with the Preschool have been moving a little, OK a lot, slower than I would have liked. Ideally I wanted to open the school the Tuesday after Labor day since that is a traditional starting day for Preschools. It’s not looking like that will be happening this year. And I’m OK with that, but I’ll admit to at least a little bit of disappointment. However, things are moving along and I CAN’T complain about that!

The LORD is doing as He said and He is setting up the school for tremendous success, of that I have no doubt! He is so faithful!

Genesis 17:1-19:38

“He lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, three men were standing in front of him. When he saw them, he ran from the tent door to meet them and bowed himself to the earth and said, ‘O Lord, if I have found favor in your sight, do not pass by your servant.'” Genesis 18:2-3

Oh do I have a story for the dog lovers out there today! So the reading today was, God’s promise to Abram to give him a son through Sarai, then as a reiteration of this promise the LORD comes and visits Abraham in physical form along with two angels, all three dressed as travelers passing by. In Hebrews 13:2 the writer actually references this visit in their letter, “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.”

Well this morning I myself got a similar visit/opportunity! I had completed my reading for the morning and was getting the kids and hubby ready for the day. Sean had found a funny cat video on Facebook that I was sharing with the kids when I heard our dog barking at the front door! I had let him out and accidentally shut the door so he couldn’t come back in! I literally ran from the kitchen to the front door to open it and let him in. Now, he’s a wiener dog, so when I opened the door my eyes were pretty close to the ground, but as I lifted them I was completely startled to see two other black dogs standing with him on our porch! I jumped and let out a bit of a scream of surprise. Then I literally doubled over in laughter. It was our neighbor’s dog Lilly that gets out ALL the time and some other little black corgi dog I haven’t met before. But the funny part of it wasn’t just that they were there, it was the looks on their faces! Countless times I have opened the door to children standing on my porch asking if one of my kids can come out and play. THAT was the look these dogs had on their faces; even Skippy. When I opened that door all three dogs just stood there for a second with that look on their faces like, “Can we come in and play?” And I instantly thought of the three “strangers” standing on Abraham’s doorstep and smiled to myself. Skippy ran into the house and then looked back at the two other dogs as if to say, “Come on guys! I’ve got toys!”

I asked the neighbor dog, “Lilly, what are you doing?” and she jumped and ran back down the steps and out of the yard with the little black corgi following her. I laughed so hard I about burst at the seams!

Now I have to tell you, when I sat down to write this all out for you and I re-read the scripture I about fell out of my chair, because I had just DONE everything that Abraham had done! I ran to greet them at the door; I lifted my eyes to see three smallish black dogs standing on my doorstep. AND I bowed in laughter at the sight of them! My God is so amazing! He delights in making me laugh. He knows what I think is funny and what I don’t. To some people (you know who you are J) to open your door and find three dogs on your porch would terrify the living spit out of you, me, I laughed hysterically and called my husband to tell him! Then I called another one of my friends, who LOVES Skippy, to tell her! Spread the laughter and joy right?

You may not think that this story has very much to do with the scriptures today, but I hope that it’s made you laugh like I did, because that IS what the scripture was about today. You see, there’s this amazing power in laughter. A laugh can make all the stress, hurt, pain, worry, tension and fear you’ve been experiencing lately simply melt away. Laughter is tremendous medicine; a cheerful spirit is good for you! (Proverbs 15:15 “All the days of the afflicted are evil, but the cheerful of heart has a continual feast.”)

Can you imagine how happy Abraham and Sarah were the day they found out they were actually pregnant? The laughter that had to have filled that house! Amazing! I mean, look at the scriptures, they laughed when God told them that they would be pregnant and have the child within the next year. And the child’s name, Isaac, means laughter!

There is something powerful about a promise being close to fulfillment that causes us to laugh. Sometimes out of doubt, Sarah, and sometimes out of joy, Abraham. But either way, we’re laughing! And that’s always good for us.

I want to share a song with you that I absolutely love! It’s from the CD that came out with a while back, called The Story. Each song is sung from a different Biblical person’s perspective in regards to their story. This song is Abraham and Sarah’s song. To me, the chorus is just so amazingly powerful; because God has dreamed a dream about each of us and our future here on earth. He’s dreamed a dream in you. And that is powerful, knowing that God has a plan, many plans, for you and your future and for your good. And you don’t even have to know what they are in order to fulfill them! How awesome is that!?! I’m willing to bet that somewhere, planted deep within your heart, there’s a dream just aching to come out and take life. And I’m also willing to bet that it’s something you’ve denied yourself for far too long. Something that people might make fun of you for, or that your parents didn’t think you could make a living doing that. What if that thing is God’s dream in you? And what if right now is the time for that dream to come out and become a reality in your life? It’s never too late; you’re not dead yet are you?

God had a dream for Abraham, that he would be the father of many nations. And He placed that dream deep down inside of Abraham in his mother’s womb. Abraham harbored that dream his entire life, he married Sarah and she was barren – no children, no fulfillment of his name (Abram means exalted father). But God wasn’t finished with him yet, in fact He had barely even started! Over and over, in almost every interaction that is recorded between God and Abraham, God mentions His promise to Abraham to bless him with a very large family. Yet every month Sarah’s “way of the woman” comes and their hearts fall once again at yet another month of empty arms. Yet they still held on to that shred of hope that God would still fulfill His promise to them. Then Sarah’s cycle finally stops altogether, hope seems completely gone. And there, in that moment God sets foot on their door and makes them laugh with the proclamation that now is the time. That now is the time that she will conceive and that she will finally bear this child of promise, Isaac the child of laughter.

It’s NEVER too late to fulfill that dream God has dreamed in you. Not ever. He is a God of the impossible, where He makes the impossible possible for those who believe! However, there’s a good chance that there’s something that you need to do first. Sarah’s cycles had ceased and Abraham was a seriously old dude. Yet to conceive this child, God was telling them was coming, they had to… well… you know. Isaac would never have been if they hadn’t had enough faith to at least TRY, just one more time. And that’s God’s challenge for you and I today. Do you have enough faith to at least TRY to… well… you know, just one more time. J

Genesis 11:10-16:16

My God is so big, so strong and so mighty there’s nothing my God can not do! My God is so big, so strong and so mighty there’s nothing my God can not do. The mountains are His, the rivers are His, the stars are His handiwork too-o! My God is so big, so strong and so mighty there’s nothing my God can not do! (one of my favorite kid songs, it was just on my heart and I needed to share it with you today. J )

You see, yesterday I was low. I was discouraged, downhearted and depressed. And while God has not yet changed my circumstance, He has still accomplished the impossible; He changed me and my attitude toward my circumstance through the strength of His word.

He had me take that list of obstacles and pair each one of them with at least one scripture from His Word. Basically He had me take each fiery dart and put it out with Living water. And it started, where else, in today’s reading. (Shaking my head and laughing) Only God!

After the battle with the foreign kings and rescuing Lot, after paying his tithe to Melchizedek, “the word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision: ‘Fear not, Abram I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.'” (Genesis 15:1) From here God pointed me forward to Psalm 33. This Psalm became a river in the desert for this parched wanderer today. I pray that it does the same for you!

“Shout for joy in the LORD, O you righteous! Praise befits the upright. Give thanks to the LORD with the lyre; make melody to Him with the harp of ten strings! Sing to Him a new song; play skillfully on the strings, with loud shouts.

For the word of the LORD is upright, and all His work is done in faithfulness. He loves righteousness and justice; the earth is full of the steadfast love of the LORD.

By the word of the LORD the heavens were made, and by the breath of His mouth all their host. He gathers the waters of the sea as a heap; He puts the deeps in storehouses.

Let all the earth fear the LORD: let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of Him! For He spoke, and it came to be; He commanded, and it stood firm.

The LORD brings the counsel of the nations to nothing; He frustrates the plans of the peoples. The counsel of the LORD stands forever, the plans of His heart to all generations. Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD, the people whom He has chosen as His heritage!

The LORD looks down from heaven; He sees all the children of man; from where He sits enthroned He looks out on all the inhabitants of the earth, He who fashions the hearts of them all and observes all their deeds. The king is not saved by His great army; a warrior is not delivered by his great strength. The war horse is a false hope for salvation, and by its great might it cannot rescue.

Behold, the eye of the LORD is on those who fear Him, on those who hope in His steadfast love, that He may deliver their soul from death and keep them alive in famine.

Our soul waits for the LORD; He is our help and our shield. For our heart is glad in Him, because we trust in His holy name. Let your steadfast love, O LORD, be upon us, even as we hope in You.”

Psalm 91:4 says, “He will cover you with His pinions, and under His wings you will find refuge; His faithfulness is a shield and buckler.”

And Ephesians 6:16 says, “In all circumstances take up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one;”

I don’t know what kind of circumstances you’re facing today. But the LORD is the “God of seeing”. (Genesis 16:13) He sees you, He sees your afflictions, He sees your pain and your frustrations and your attackers. He sees because He is with you. Right there, like a spring in the desert, waiting to be tapped into and used. His word is a fountain of Living Water just waiting to quench your thirsty soul with nourishing hope. The hope and confidence that comes from knowing that it’s not about you, it’s about HIM; you are not in control, He is.

He is in control, even when it doesn’t feel like it. He is your shield and your very great reward. He is your fortress of strength when you are weak and tired of fighting. He is a home for the homeless, hope for the hopeless, rest for the weary, strength for the weak. He is an ever present help in times of trouble. And it is HIS faithfulness that shields you from all harm and destruction. Things may seem hopelessly out of control, but the one who spins the planets into orbit without crashing them into one another, is perfectly capable of making sure that your world doesn’t spin out of His control either.

You know what God taught me today that I had never noticed before? Ishmael’s name. Of all the lessons and all the sermons I’ve heard on the two sons of Israel, one the son of promise, the other the son by human will, not once did anyone point out what Ishmael’s name means. Ishmael means “God hears”. For someone who believes adamantly that no baby is an accident because they are impossible to make without God knitting them together in their mother’s womb, each and every one of them is fearfully and wonderfully made. Even Ishmael. Ishmael, even as a wild donkey of a man with his hand against everyone and everyone’s hand against him, God was with him there in his mother’s womb. God was with them in this moment of frightened desperation and rejection, He HEARD their plight. This woman was a servant, given to a man to lie with and to bear children for her mistress. Not for herself, not for a family, but to give to another woman; who then treated her with jealous hatred. God saw and heard her tears. God’s words to her next to that spring were words of hope and encouragement. Her child, though his life would be filled with strife, would be a great man with nations inside him waiting to be born.

This spoke volumes to me, as one who has acted quite faithlessly as of late. That even in our faithlessness, God is still faithful and He is still good and filled with Grace toward us. He HEARS the pain that’s hiding behind our faithless actions. He HEARS the fears that well up inside us and choke our throats with sobs. He is so good, especially when we’re not. And if that isn’t reason to celebrate, I don’t what is. J

My God is so big, so strong and so mighty, there’s nothing my God can not do. My God is so big, so strong and so mighty, there’s nothing my God can not do. The mountains are His, the rivers are His, the stars are His handiwork too-o! My God is so big, so strong and so mighty, there’s nothing my God can not do! FOR YOU!

Genesis 6:1-11:9

“And nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them.” Genesis 11:6

I’m feeling rather hopeless at the moment. Not that I should be, I have no reason to be hopeless. You see, for the last four weeks I’ve been working on starting a preschool, Grace University. It’s been a dream of mine for many years now and God has just given me the “go ahead” on it. I’ve been going like gang busters this whole time, nothing Satan threw in front of me could stop me or keep me from believing that getting this preschool started by September 3^rd was possible, until this weekend.

I received an email from the pastor of the church where we have been hoping to hold the preschool. They need $500 up front to cover their insurance costs, which I completely understand, except I don’t have $500. And I’m coming to realize that had they asked for 500 signatures, or 500 waffles or 500 monkeys I probably wouldn’t have batted an eyelash at them and just said, “OK, let me go take care of that for you, I’ll be right back.” But as soon as you throw a dollar sign in front of that 500 I become suddenly paralyzed. Monkeys I can find, money, well that’s much harder.

I know it sounds silly, but it’s true! At least that’s the way things seem to be working in my head anyway. I have apparently been so brainwashed by Satan to think that $500 appearing in the next seven days is just too impossible for me. Oh sure God can provide it for someone else, but give it to me in order to do what He’s asked me to do, no way. I’m not sure where the hang up has come from, or why I have it. But one thing is for sure! I want to get rid of it forever!

I have had more financial miracles happen to me than I know how to count, yet when it comes time for me to need another one all I do is pout and doubt. It makes no sense! But I guess I’m in good company seeing as how that’s exactly what the Israelites did. God parted the largest body of water around so that they could walk across on dry ground. Yet three days later they’re thirsty in the desert and suddenly they forget who they’re following, you know, the God who just parted the waters. “Maybe if we ask nicely He will give us some water. Nah, we’ll just moan and complain and talk about life being better in slavery, that’ll work.” Yeah right! Where DO we get This feeling of hopelessness in the sight of the giver of Hope Himself?

I feel like Hagar after she had been cast out of Abraham’s house (again) and she was sitting near a well dying of thirst. I know the well is near, yet I’ve refused to drink from it, why? Sadly, I don’t know the answers, only more questions. But I know the answer giver, He’s my friend.

Speaking of friends, I was sharing a bit of my angst with my friend Tracy yesterday and she asked me, “Stand firm on what you know to be true.” And it made me think, what do I know to be true? I know that this preschool is definitely part of God’s plan for me, He told me so years and years and years ago. I know that now is the time for it to happen because He told me that too. So I’m taking these two Truths and holding them up to the circumstances around me that seem to be telling me something different and now I have to decide, which one do I believe? The two truths that God told me, or the things that are contradicting them? I’m going to choose to believe the Truth from God and allow Him to deal with the things that are standing in my way to making those two truths become a reality in my life.

I also know that Satan would do ANYTHING to stop this preschool from happening. He knows what kind of a school we’ve dreamed for It to be and he knows that we’ll do everything we can to make it just that. Grace University.

Genesis 1:26-5:32

“But the LORD called to the man” Genesis 3:9

Yesterday I talked about my fear that when I sinned God would turn away from Me, that He would stop talking to me. Today God has provided me with the perfect examples of how He DOESN’T do that.

There are a lot of things I have learned in my eleven years of being a parent. One of them is the astounding wisdom that comes with being a parent. Well, at least it astounds my children anyway. You know what I mean right? All the times when you can “see” what they’re doing even when you’re not in the same room with them. Case in point, just last night the kids were supposed to be getting ready for bed. Anna was completely ready and back in the living room ready to do our night time devotional, Gabe on the other hand, who is usually the first one ready, was still in his room. And without even getting up from his chair in the living room Sean said, “Gabe, put your Legos down, get your pajamas on and get in here!”

At no point could we hear him sifting through his Legos, did Anna tattle on him, nor did either one of us get up to look and see what he was doing. Yet we both knew exactly what he was doing that was keeping him from doing what he was supposed to be doing at that moment.

I mean honestly, how many times have you heard the saying “Moms have eyes in the back of their heads”. It’s because we know our children so well that we don’t have to be in the same room with them to know what they’re doing. The same is true, only more so, with God. He knows His children well enough that He knew exactly what was happening before He even entered the garden that day. But like any other dad He has to go through the whole conversation with them and hash out what happened.

“But the LORD God called to the man and said to him, ‘Where are you?’ And he said, ‘I heard the sound of You in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself.’ He said, ‘Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?’ The man said, ‘The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.’ Then the LORD God said to the woman, ‘What is this that you have done?’ The woman said, ‘The serpent deceived me, and I ate.'” Genesis 3:9-13

Now I don’t know about you, but I’ve had enough conversations like this with kids that to me I can just see little Adam and little Eve pointing their fingers down the line blaming the one next to them. I can see the mess of fig leaves all over the ground the core of the forbidden fruit cast aside in shame of what they’d done. I can see their big round eyes shiny with guilty tears and the fear of having been caught knowing that there would be a consequence. Yes, this scene is all too familiar to me because I’ve seen it play out before me many times in the last eleven years. But before that it wasn’t a scene that played out before me, it’s the scene I played.

The guilty party hiding behind another tree in shame of what I’d done, knowing that it was wrong but having done it anyway. Afraid of what God would say when He “found out”. You seriously can’t tell me He didn’t already know what had just happened in the garden, He’s GOD ALMIGHTY, He knew. He knew before He ever created them.

But here’s my point. Would any good parent know their child has done something like this and just walk away? If the child you carried for 9+ months in your womb walked out into a busy street would you turn your back and say nothing because they had sinned against you by not obeying your rule about not going in the street? As a parent, that would be the stupidest thing you could ever do. And you wouldn’t do it because it makes no sense what=so-ever. Your child would die if you were silent. So as a good parent you wouldn’t remain silent would you? You wouldn’t turn your back and walk away from your child who has put themselves in devastating danger now would you? So why is it that we think God does?

If you’re walking right into sin, through it even, and covering yourself with the fig leaves of shame, what makes you think that God is going to be silent about it? What makes you think that He will turn His back on you and leave you in that dangerous situation? Is He not a good parent, better than any kind of parent we could ever be?

Right here in scripture, in today’s reading, we find it not once but twice that He is precisely that kind of parent. When Adam and Eve fall into sin, God comes and confronts them with their sin immediately before they can do any more damage. Then again when Cain kills Abel God immediately calls him into accountability. In neither situation did God remain silent and walk away from His beloved child. In both cases He walked TO them and talked TO them.

For far too long God has been painted as a vengeful God acting only in wrath and justice toward his children. But that is never the kind of parent He has been. Not ever. When I read these passages, I see my dad with me. I see my husband with my children. The kind of father that comes in and sees the mess they’ve made and says, “This is not acceptable behavior. Now clean up the mess you’ve made.” And if the mess is bigger than they are, or dangerous for them to clean up (broken glass/lives) then He helps them repair the damage and then they all move on with life because forgiveness has taken place as well.

God isn’t vengeful, He is love. His anger isn’t directed toward you, it’s directed toward the mess you’ve made for yourself and the danger you’ve put yourself in. Why? Because HE LOVES YOU! He loves you enough to correct you when you’re going the wrong way, when you’re wasting your time doing the wrong things. Your time is the most precious commodity you have on this planet. It is the ONLY thing that you have that once gone there will never be more. So we’ve got to make sure that we’re spending it wisely. And I can tell you from my own experience lately, God won’t let you go too far down the wrong road before He stops you and tells you to turn back around and head a different direction. He is so good that way!

Are you like I was? Did you see God as the kind of God that would stop talking to you and stop blessing you if you did something wrong? Did today’s reading change the way you saw God as a father? How has it changed your thinking? Food for thought at least isn’t it.