Don't feel like you have to read this

God's been showing me His world needs change.

There's a two month old at the crisis nursery right now.

Why, WHY, would anyone not want that baby?

I DON'T UNDERSTAND.

I've tried and I've tried. God's world needs to change. It needs to be what He wanted. I want us to live it the way He intends. I want it enough that I'll do anything.

I'm really tired of being selfish. I'm here to do whatever I can to help. I need to help.

His world is falling apart and it's all our fault, we're all selfish and we pray for God to heal us and make our lives better and I KNOW that if we cared about other people the way we can and should, then we'd be too worried about others to focus on ourselves.

It's amazing how much healing comes from helping others, and I have no patience for anything else.

Noah

I'm in an Old Testament class right now. Besides the fact that I hate getting tested on biblical knowledge, I'm actually enjoying it quite a bit. But my professor has spent the last few weeks making a case for the flood (think Noah's ark) not actually happening throughout the world and also made me wonder why God refers to Himself as "our" (think Genesis 1:26: "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness").

I've come to the conclusion that I don't know what conclusion to come to. I'd like to believe that the flood was universal, but there's manuscripts from all over--the Epic of Gilgamesh has many, MANY similarities to the story of Noah, but it also involves many gods.

Which brings me to point 2. I personally think my professor came down too hard on me when I suggested the "our" might mean the trinity (he pointed out the trinity is not mentioned at all in the Old Testament). He said the "our" is a divine council. As far as meaning God and His heavenly angels, I guess he might be right. Touche, Prof. Moyer, touche.

I think the purpose of the flood story was not to spell out a specific event that occurred in a certain way at a certain time and ended with a rainbow (and probably a pot of gold). I think it's a "story", but a story from which we can learn a lot from and which I have no authority to deem accurate or inaccurate.

I do know this. There's been no fish bones found on land to indicate a flood. How would the animals have all gone to where Noah built his boat? The big tigers didn't kill the little bunnies for forty days? The freshwater fish became saltwater fish? Noah landed on the mountains of Ararat (in modern day Iran) and the polar bears got themselves to Alaska? It would take 8--let me repeat, EIGHT-- times the amount of water that exists on this earth to cover Mt. Everest. And where did this water go?

God's awesome and amazing and I can fully believe that He just made all this work. That there's no reason for practical implications when He is involved. But I'm going to focus on the meaning behind Genesis from now on, which is extremely applicable and full of God's purpose, instead of nitpicking. My faith is in God, and does not depend on the existence of Noah.

Studying the Bible this closely with professional religious expertise shutting down all my childhood Sunday School stories is strengthening my knots of faith. I didn't even know some of them were there, but now that someone's tried to tear them apart it's clear they are eternal.

Reckless

A Child Soldier named Michel Chikwanine came to Missouri State's campus. He talked about his time in the Democratic Republic of Congo. He was 23? 24? and has seen some of the most painful parts of this world.

When he was 8, he was abducted while playing soccer alongside his best friend. They took him to a child army encampment. Though he was too little to handle a gun on his own, he was still trained to shoot.

Within the first few weeks of living at the encampment, he was blindfolded. A man stood him up, placed a gun in his hands, and said "SHOOT". After dropping the gun twice, Michel mustered all his strength he had to hold up the gun and fired. The man behind him took the gun away and removed the blindfold; Michel had just shot his best friend.

After escaping the child army, Michel also witnessed the rapes of his mother and two sisters; he was told to watch and held at gunpoint, where he would be shot if he blinked. Michel's father was a political activist and tortured, and in the end, Michel had little choice but to leave home as a refugee.

All I have done today is wish I had slept more last night and complained about my classes. I find myself craving reckless abandonment in pursuit of the lost.