the rest of the story

Noah was really, well, grand - amazing singing, wonderful scenery.  And I remember thinking, "Jehovah loves me."  Thoughts don't get much better than that.  In a very Christ-centric faith, these days it's good to be reminded of God the father, and that He has a name.  It makes it all so much more personal.

Of course the show basically ends with the rainbow and God's promise.  (With a surprise appearance by Jesus that made me feel a little uncomfortable.)  Big music, applause, and we were soon filing into the aisles to go home.

In the car, Tyler pipes up.  "I couldn't help thinking, In a few days that man is going to be drunk!"
 
"Me too, Tyler!" Me.  "And there'll be that whole naked thing."

My sister Lori says, "Me too!  And I kept looking at Ham and thinking, You're going to be cursed!  You're going to be cursed!"

Hmm.  Wonder why they didn't include that stuff?

I said, "In typical old testament fashion, the story gets really messy!"

You know, God is the ultimate non-sentimentalist.  Just when you're told about a really big rainbow and a promise, somebody gets schnockered.  Just when you've read about cool battles and victories, somebody sleeps with the general's wife and offs the general.  Just when the church really starts growing, people have to lie about the price of their field, and end up dropping dead, carried out in the arms of "the young men."

The Bible really is the messiest book around, isn't it?  And I can't think of a book out there in the mainstream world containing gorier, more sexually disturbing situations.  Imagine if we wrote a novel about a guy whose concubine is gang raped to death, then he gets so mad at the gang rapists, he cuts the woman's body in twelve pieces and sends them around the kingdom to incite said kingdom to decimate in battle the men of the entire tribe from which the gang rapists, those awful men of Gibeah, came?  Whoa.  Quentin Tarantino only thinks he's livin' on the edge!

But all that gives me hope in some twisted way.  That God's grace extends farther than man's sin can reach astounds me and I can say, "Yes, that God, Jehovah by name, is my God, too."

grace,

lisa