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Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Faith things:: faith&obedience.

J & I are reading through the Bible this year.
{Its been pretty great so far}

But I've been really caught up on two things from Genesis.

{faith&obedience}

 Remember the story of Noah & the ark? How God commanded him to do this crazy thing? I've probably read and heard the story about a gagillion times, but this time around a verse stood out to me that I'd never noticed before.

"So Noah did everything exactly how God had commanded him."
Genesis 6:22

Um, excuse me, what?! He did everything exactly as he was told?
I'm pretty sure I can count on one hand the number of times I've done that. 
Whew.
But it seems that God seriously rewarded Noah's faithfulness and obedience. He trusted 100% what God asked of him, and in return his family was preserved while the rest of the human race was wiped out. That's a big deal.

So I guess what I've been ruminating on is this real, amazing picture of faith. What areas am I doing some things kind of that way God is commanding me? 
I've been thinking about it. And there are a lot of areas, my friends, a lot of areas.
So I'm working on it...the whole 100% faith thing.

The second thing I've been caught up on is the theme of God's promises in Genesis. Mainly his promise with Abram and his lineage. Things didn't seem to work fast for Abram or his family. God made some big promises but they took a loooong time to pan out. And in the meantime, God just kept promising.

A promise is a promise is a promise.

We're all used to promises. But I think I've gotten to used to breaking promises or having promises broken by others. That's human nature, right? So a promise has kind of lost its value on me, I guess.

But a promise is a promise is a promise.

This simple theme in Genesis has been wrecking my heart. God's made some promises to me...big and small. And my unbelieving heart has a hard time clinging to those promises. But God's different than me, he sticks to his word. He's good for it. I am just seriously lacking in some faith areas.


So all in all, you could say Genesis {a book I've read countless times} has been giving me repeated swift kicks in the butt all month.

Faith & obedience. Those are the lessons of the month for me!

5 comments:

  1. i love this recap of both faith and obedience.

    obviously it is SO hard to follow perfectly. which is what forgiveness is for.

    but i agree. you get used to broken promises. so it is nice to get a reminder that:

    a promise is a promise is a promise.

    i love that.

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  2. I love this! I'm in a biblical studies class and for the first time in my life (despite growing up Catholic) I am actually LOOKING at the Bible and God's Word to us. Genesis gave me a swift kick in the butt too! There are a lot of strong, deep reminders in there, and I'm so happy for you that you have rediscovered them. The Word sure knows how to find us, doesn't it? :)

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  3. Those 2 things, I lack major in a lot. I don't know how Abraham waited and waited so faithfully. My little life, I doubt God all the time because I feel I've waited long enough.

    Its so neat reading a passage you've read over and over again but then you "read" it and it jumps out at you and hits home. So glad you're having that right now in Genesis!!
    Emily at Amazing Grapes

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  4. i love your heart, sweet friend. and because you're being challenged and sharing it, in turn it challenges me. thanks for being so great, katie! :) love you!

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  5. so true...and such a rare thing to see these days. I am reading through the Bible too, hopefully I can keep up with you!

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