Yes I haven’t written in a while. I’ve been very  busy and have felt more led to spend time with God and spend time being faithful in other areas of my life.

I will say that I’ve been studying and meditating on Genesis for quite a while and it’s been quite a blessing.

I’ve read Genesis a few times already, but every time I come back, God grants new revelation about the book and its themes, messages, and even challenging texts give me so much life.

Here’s a summary of things I’ve been learning so far in my time in Genesis:

  • God had incredible favor on Abraham and his descendants. This favor defined them as a nation and other nations recognized the God of Israel because they walked in such great favor. 
  • This favor is undeserved and cannot be demanded. If you read Genesis, it is far from stories of role models to be like. Abraham lies twice to Egyptian and Canaanite King as does his son Jacob. Jacob is a deceiver and a liar. Their wives often show lack of faith and act out of faithlessness. And their sons are violent and rash. These people show how imperfect they are in the narrative of Genesis. Yet one thing remains–God’s incredible favor is still on them. None of them deserved it, and none of them had a right to demand more of it. But it shows the prodigal nature of God, radically spending his favor upon undeserved people like our beloved patriarchs, a gesture we recognize as believers who have received the grace of his death on the cross. 
  • The book of Genesis is a stein of both evil and good. Almost in all the episodes, there is never clearly a good thing that happens and there is never a clearly an evil thing that happens. There is always a mixture of both. What a perfect display of our human experience! That line from Les Miserable keeps ringing in my ears: “I am reaching, but I fall…” Even in my own life, in our churches, in our faith communities, we try to do good, but evil is right there with us. Genesis shows the messiness of what it means to be human.
  • …Yet the good news is that the thread of God is woven throughout the pages. He is truly the redeemer of Israel and of his people, in the sense that he takes what is broken and messed up about us and he somehow turns it into palpable good. This is the God we worship and praise. This is the God we have given our messy lives over to. The bloody hands of human brokenness are all over Genesis, but his gracious handiwork is right there behind us, cleaning up and redirecting our mishaps–what a gracious God we serve!

I hope to write more soon.