Education of a Wandering Man

 Genesis 8:  God remembered Noah and caused the flood to recede. Psalm 8: God put humans in charge of everything Proverbs 9: Folly leads to death. These verses speak to me.  The flood shows how humanity's folly will lead to death.  Not only for the individual, but for all of humanity.   Yet, God will remember us, and save us, if we only repent of our sins, and ask for His forgiveness.

 Genesis 7:  God sends a flood to destroy every living thing on the earth, except in His infinite mercy, He saves the few that believe and worship Him. Psalm 7: If a person does not repent, God will sharpen His sword.   Thank the Lord because He is just. Proverbs 8: All who follow God's ways are joyful. I can't even begin to imagine the world before the flood.  I don't know what the people did that they so utterly rejected God, that He found only a few righteous people in the world, and they caused Him to destroy everything.   These three verses really tell a story.  Imagine how joyful Noah must have felt when he was on the boat, and the rain continued to fall.   And know that God in His infinite mercy allows us to this day to repent.  And turn to Him.  How joyful are those who follow His ways. 

 There we are warned that it may happen to anyone of us to appear at last before the face of God and hear only the appalling words, ‘I never knew you. Depart from Me.’ In some sense, as dark to the intellect as it is unendurable to the feelings, we can be both banished from the presence of Him who is present everywhere and erased from the knowledge of Him who knows all. We can be left utterly and absolutely outside—repelled, exiled, estranged, finally and unspeakably ignored. CS Lewis, The Weight of Glory This is the definition of hell.  The bible describes hell as a place of fire.  I think this is one of the few ways in which God can convey to us mere mortals a place where He does not exist.  A place of eternal torment.   Most of us have probably burned ourselves at one point or another in our lives.  It is painful, and it is a pain that continues to linger.  Burned skin hurts when it is burning, and it hurts for days afterwards until it is heale...

 I started reading this book back in November for Indian Heritage month.  I like being able to segement some of my reading into various months.  And using the world's breakdown seem as good as any.   I didn't get to finish it in time, other things cropped up that took up my time. I can't say I enjoyed it, but I did learn a lot.  It also inspired me to learn more about the Nez Perce, the war with the United States, and to write a campaign supplement for wargaming.   I had several problems with it.   The biggest one being Mr. West's disdain for Christianity.  also think he did a terrible job really describing the problems of the running Nez Perce, and why they chose/were forced to surrender at Bear Paw Mountain.  It appeared from the earlier battles they were winning. They took supplies, weapons, and everything they needed to win more battles.   Elliot West did a great job describing the battles, what happened, the comb...

 Genesis 6: Humanity's wickedness broke God's heart.  But Noah found favor with the Lord, so he did what exactly as God commanded him. Psalm 6:  Save me because of your unfailing love. Proverbs 6:  Stay out of debt Don't be lazy Don't be wicked So if we follow after Noah, we should do as the Lord commands us.  Most of Proverbs is God's commands for us to live our life.  The formula seems simple enough.  Do as God commands us, exactly.   Stay out of Debt.  Seems simple enough, but is really darn hard in this day and age.  It's hard to be patient, and wait until we have enough money to buy the things we want.   Don't be lazy.  A good portion of Proverbs is dealing with people being lazy.  Don't be lazy.  I don't take this to mean, that we should be working 24 hours a day.  I have decided to interpret it to mean, have a job, work when it's time to work, and work hard when it's time to work.  

 Genesis 5:  Enoch lived in a close fellowship with God until he was 365 years old, then God took him. Psalm 5:  Let all who take refuge in You rejoice. Proverbs 5: You will die for lack of self-control. Wow what a trilogy of verse today.  Enoch walked with God, almost like he took refuge in God.  He must have practiced self-control, because he did not die.  At least that is my understanding of those verses, everyone else in that chapter has how old they were when they died, but not Enoch, no he was taken by God.  

 Genesis 4: God rejected Cain's sacrifice because Cain did not do what was right.   "Sin is crouching at the door waiting to control us." Psalm 4:  Don't sin by letting anger control you.  Think about it overnight and remain silent. Proverbs 4:  Prize wisdom and become great.  A lot of talk about sin today.  You know what can help us?  Gaining the wisdom of God.  How can we gain the wisdom of God?  Immerse ourselves in His word.  

 Genesis 2: God created man and woman, gave them one rule, and they promptly broke it.  And rather than accept responsibility, they compounded the original sin by trying to hide it.  This seems to be a common human pattern.  Many people today refuse to acknowledge when they do wrong.  They refuse to accept personal responsibility for their actions. Psalm 2: Serve the Lord with reverent fear.  This seems to tie in nicely with Genesis chapter 2.  Clearly hindsight is 20/20, but if Adam and Eve had served the Lord with reverent fear, where would the world be today?   Proverbs 2:   God grants wisdom.  From Him comes understanding and knowledge.  Of course they do, without Him, there is no wisdom, no understanding, and no knowledge.  Again this seems to tie in well with the story of original sin, sin is easy to fall into, but with God's wisdom, we can overcome anything.  

Genesis 2: God creates man and woman, and gives them the one rule to not eat of the Tree of Good and Evil Psalm 2: Serve the Lord with reverent fear.  Submit to God's Son. Proverbs 2: God grants wisdom, from Him come knowledge and understanding. I find the phrasing in Proverbs chapter 2 to be very interesting, from Him comes knowledge and understanding. It appears that we must learn first, and then understand second.  Only after we have gained knowledge, can we then understand things.  I think too many times in this life, we seek to understand things,  without actually taking the time to learn things. There are many examples of this.  The main example that comes to mind is the debate on gun control.  Many people think they understand what an "evil" gun is, without ever gaining the knowledge of what terms such as semi-automatic, AR-15, etc means.  

 Al-Fatihah According to the Quran, Allah is the master of the day of judgement.  This is in stark contrast to the words of Jesus in John 12:47  And if any man hear My words and believe not, I judge him not; for I came not to judge the world, but to save the world. We can already start to see the difference between Christianity and Islam.  My God, the Christian God, came into the world to save it, while the Muslim god, is only here to judge us.   

 Genesis, Chapter 1 God created the world and everything in it Psalms 1: Oh the joy of those who delight in the law of the Lord. The path of the wicked leads to destruction Proverbs 1: Living a successful life requires discipline.