Week 1
Genesis 1-21
Ok friends- week 1 and I’m already torn!! There is SO much in this week’s “assignment.” I don’t want to get so bogged down in the details because we could quite literally spend our entire time together in just this section but I also don’t want to skim over this because there’s some really fascinating stuff in here!! So-
1st of all- not all the weekly posts are going to be this lengthy. Some will actually be quite short, I promise!
2ndly- I’m happy to just grin and bear it and dig through all these details together, if you are! It’ll be fun 😉
Creation
What is left to say about the creation story? I mean this is one of the first Bible stories we all learned, right?
So- personally, I’m wondering was a day then the same thing as a day now? Like ok it took God a day to create the sun & the stars- but was it like He snapped his fingers and it happened immediately? Or was it some combination of He spoke it into existence and science did its thing to actually form the stars and it all happened in a “day” but not necessarily in 24 hours the way we think of a day?
And really, other than me just being curious, does it really matter? God created everything. And the same God that created the solar system looked at his perfect creation and decided that this world needed YOU too. How amazing is that?!
My other takeaways-
Humans could only eat seed bearing plants
Animals could only eat green leaves
So a carnivore wasn’t a thing back then?
Everybody likes to say Eve ate an apple, but was it? I’m seeing she ate a fruit, no where does it say apple.
What did a snake used to look like?! Did it have legs?! How disturbing is that? NOPE, nope nope nope 😬👎🙅♀️🔥
What are your thoughts? New takeaways?
Adam & Eve’s family tree
Ok ok yeah yeah yeah the whole DNA And Me or Ancestry DNA kits may be just giving your personal information to some government database- who knows
BUT I find family trees fascinating. Everybody (ok maybe not everybody, but a lot of us) enjoy following the royals and then me being a dork- I like to try to figure out how all these people are connected, so wait Prince William is related to which of the kings in my history book? So how much cooler is it to look at the original family lineage?!
Seeing how the same family line goes all the way from Adam to Noah- how cool is that?!
Several things are sticking out to me here-
1- the age of these people! I feel like I’m falling apart already and I am literally just a fraction of their ages. Can you imagine being over 100 years old? Much less over 800 years old?!
2- how would it feel to be in the “other sons and daughters” category. These were people, real people, with real lives, and real day to day drama- and their siblings get named in not just a book but literally THE Book and then they get clumped into the “other sons and daughters” category.
3- for me personally, it really hit me that Cain and Abel both gave to God. They both obviously believed in God. But Cain gave just to give, he knew that’s what he was supposed to do so he gave enough to check it off his list. Whereas Able GAVE. He gave more, he wasn’t just checking it off his list of monthly bills. Able chose the best, his firstborn, perfect (I’m guessing most valuable) livestock and that’s what he gave to God. Which one of those scenarios do I most often do in my own life? Ouch- those were my toes that just got stepped on 😬
What stuck out to you? Did you have any new takeaways?
Noah
Yes, another classic. Noah’s Ark was naturally the 2nd Bible story we learned as kids, right?
But it’s fascinating to me how many details those children stories tweaked just a bit. Are the children’s Bible book authors moonlighting for Disney? Or maybe because the actual story is kind of dark! The people, (almost) ALL of the people were so evil that God literally gave up on them. It’s like He said “that’s it, y’all are just too far gone, I’m starting over!” WOW
So a few take always here for me-
I always thought he took 2 of every kind but this is saying 7 of every bird, 7 of every clean animal, and 2 of every unclean animal. 7, not 2?!
It’s not until they get off the boat that an omnivore or carnivore becomes a thing? So that whole time, people & animals have only been allowed to eat plants and fruits?!
In the children’s books & movies version- there’s normally like a deck and several windows right? But given the fact that Noah had to send out a bird to see if it was safe to get off the boat, that tells me he didn’t have windows with a grand view or a nice balcony to observe what was going on.
4. Given the waters covered the earth, covering the mountains at least 20’ is this potentially how those ancient water animal fossils made their way into the mountains and weird areas where paleontologists “shouldn’t” be finding water animal fossils?
5. During the 2020 covid lockdown, we stayed home as directed, only leaving our house for necessities or when I absolutely had to go into the office with my essential employee letter certifying I was allowed to be out. During this ordeal we were home for 60ish days. As a family we went on walks & we spent lots of time outside. Despite going outside and occasionally leaving the house, we all almost lost our minds!! And we were home for a fraction of the time Noah’s family was on the boat, unable to go outside and walk the dog. 😳
What were your takeaways? Did something jump out at you that maybe you haven’t noticed before?
Abram
This guy!! So he’s on his way to Canaan with his dad, his nephew, and his wife but they get lost along the way and end up settling in Haran?
So then he’s 75, lived in the same town this whole time, and now God tells him to move so he moves. No questions asks, he just goes.
But then there’s a famine so he goes to Egypt- first of all, is this a bit of foreshadowing what’s getting ready to happen with Joseph & his brothers. But then as if that’s not enough, God sends diseases (cough cough, plague?) to the Egyptians- that’s gotta be some foreshadowing of Moses.
But back to the original issue of this poor guy- his wife and him want a baby and can’t get pregnant so she gives him her maid servant and then he gets to deal with the jealousy & drama between his wife and her maidservant 😬
Oh we’re not done yet, now God tells him at the ripe age of 99 to get circumcised and circumcise all the males in his household. AND he DOES IT! No questions asked, he does it!! Still no baby, but he still does it.
THEN, they finally have a baby. Granted they are old and most likely tired but they have a baby!
So a few takeaways-
This kind of faith and obedience, wow! That’s really all I can even say. As I’m reading these different scenarios Abraham goes through, I’m baffled and then embarrassed to think- how many times would I have questioned. Are you sure God? Do I really have to move my whole family from the town we’ve always lived in? Not to mention- I’m supposed to CUT what?! And I’m assuming there were no painkillers or surgical conveniences at this point in time 😳 I can only imagine the words my husband would have or the excuses he could come up with.
Before our 1st son, my husband and I struggled to get pregnant. My body just wasn’t quite sure what to do so it took us a little longer. When trying to get pregnant and it doesn’t just happen- LIFE IS HARD!! For me anyway- that’s all I could think about. Everything centered around it. Calculating days, tracking temperatures, seeing the sand slip through the hour glass and feeling like I was missing out on the family I had always dreamed of. Not to mention how when you’re trying to get pregnant, it seems like EVERYONE else is getting pregnant. So my heart goes out to Sarai in a big way.
But now as a mom to 2 precious tinies- I can confidently say kids are hard, regardless of their age, they are difficult but a baby?! That’s a different ballgame, babies are HARD! They don’t sleep when you want them to, they are completely helpless, can’t tell you what’s wrong and all in all, adorable and precious but HARD! But let’s back up for just a second, being pregnant is a wonderful blessing but it is also HARD. Everything is hard- when I’m pregnant, I obsess over my food- am I eating too much, am I eating enough, did I eat too much junk food, what are the ingredients, does this have caffeine?? But I also obsess over everything- did I lift too much, did I twist or bend over too tightly, did I rest enough, is anything and/ or everything I’m doing the right thing for this precious life growing inside me?? Once you get bigger- walking is hard, getting dressed is hard, getting comfortable is difficult, sleeping is impossible, and time seems to stop- you want to hold and meet this precious baby but no definite time for when you get to. Plus then I start obsessing over the actual delivery- birth plan, go bag, what if something goes wrong, which doctor is on call, etc. So for Sarah and Abraham to be going through all of this once they are “old and well advanced in years” 😳😳😳 without any of the modern conveniences of being pregnant today.
I don’t know about y’all, but I feel like that was a lot to take in!!