The Bible

I was looking at pictures on the Internet today and came across the bible verse Phil 4:3...well, in trying to look up that verse to read it. I found a website where I could read the whole bible if I wanted to. So,after I read Phil 4:13 I decided to look through the books and stop anywhere that I thought would be an interesting read in the short amount of time I had.

I came across lamentations and thought' "I wonder who wrote this and could it possibly be real laments?"...well of course it is, but my brain was just not moving fast enough. I still don't know who wrote it, but I opened it up and started to read from the first verse.

As I read, I started to think about Psalms, Proverbs and Song of Songs (Solomon, depending on the type of bible you have), how they are great works of poetry...David, of course, being one of the greatest poets of all wrote with abandon and never held anything back wrote the Psalms. You can go through his life story in the Psalms....his ups, downs, joys, pain, anger and happiness it's all there laid out for us. I don't think it's only there for us to read, but I think it's also there as an example. As humans there are things we just can't understand about God. We get impatient, we're worrisome and we just don't know how to handle ourselves sometimes. We get angry at each other, but also at God. I'm not saying it's right or wrong, but if you are honest it's true.

If David, the man after God's own heart, has showed us anything, it's that the flawed can do their best to be "cured" and that with God's forgiveness and faith we can thrive. There are times when he is HIGHLY upset with God, but then he turns it around because he realizes that it's not really God's problem, it's his. God hasn't changed and the Psalms can remind us that even when we "overreact" to a situation He is still there waiting for us and all we have to do is reach out our hands in worship and praise him. We will always forgive us, but what David shows us is that we have to put ourselves aside.

Sorry I totally started ranting and got taken off topic, but I'm coming back!

Jesus said that he was sent here to be our example. He came down so that he could experience the daily pressures of our lives in all their forms. In his weakest state he allowed Satan to tempt him in all manners of sin, but he never caved. But Jesus isn't our only example. The bible is littered with them, for men, women and children. And untimely (I've finally understood what I'm about to say), the bible itself is our example and guide. Whatever we may be feeling, we can find a representative of it in the bible. If you read deeply, Lamentations is about Israel being rejected by God and given into the hands of it's enemies...it's God's people crying out to him...shoot, just crying out but it can also be laments for us in our darkest most depressed moments of life! Song of Songs is about two lovers...which again if you look deeply is about God's love for the church and vice versa, but if you are just reading it for fun...it's about the perfect love between two people and isn't that what we are all looking for? The new testament is about God's promise fulfilled and how we are supposed to handle the responsibility Christ left to us.

Some people take the bible literally, while some believe there are grey areas that should be adapted according to the times in which we live. Whatever you're beliefs on the subject the message of the bible and it's intend are clear...it's a guide, a comfort and a great read!