test-driving planet earth

It's been a while since i've blogged! Well, i'm still sick...been sick for 20 days now, and i'm not enjoying it...but in any case, God's still teaching me stuff!

I've been reading this "god sightings" thing that I mentioned in my last post, and it's been really neat to read the old testament and new testament side-by-side. I never realized how much everyone was test-driving this whole earth thing in the beginning! Even God! Like...at one point He says "man, i regret letting man live to be 900 years old! that's waaaay too long! after this flood, i'll start over and they won't live as long!"

Or when Lot flees from Sodom and then his daughters make him drunk and sleep with him to get pregnant... That one REALLY seems like a "well we're new at this whole 'earth' thing so...". But God doesn't bat an eye, He blesses those kids and creates the ammonites and moabites out of them!

Or Abraham... what a messed up marriage him and Sarah had! First he's a coward and lies to the Egyptians saying "no, she's my sister! you go right ahead and sleep with her!" and they do... He actually lets the Egyptians sleep with his wife! ...then later on, when both Abraham and Sarah are doubting God's prophecy, she gives him her servant... So Abraham has sex with his wife's servant and impregnates her... Heck! If I was Sarah, i'd never forgive him, even though it was my decision! What a messed up family, and yet God decided to make the greatest nation from them...

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But then you flip to the new testament, and Christ says "if you even look at a woman lustfully, you have committed adultery with her in your heart" ... boy things sure changed!

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Another thing I don't really get... Abraham could chat it up with god, dispite how messed up his marriage was. no sacrifices first, no "holy of holies"... he could just interrupt god's plans and say "what about 30 people in sodom? then will you spare it?" "what about 20? 10?" ...and God didn't zap him dead...

But then later on in the old testament, a man get's zapped dead for picking up some wood for a fire on the sabbath...

I think it's safe to say we cannot understand God, or his grace or His judgment. We just need to have faith and believe that He is a fare, just and gracious God!