The Bald Goat

My thoughts have been all over the place the last few days, but I wanted to return to an idea I started a few days ago. I mentioned in one blog post about how I believe God has choices and then I went on in another blog post to talk about how I believed God created us in his image basically giving us the freedom of choice. I had another thought along this line that has continued to be on my mind and wanted to share with whoever is reading as part of my thoughts with God for today.

When we think about examples for us to follow ,for how to live our lives in a way pleasing to God, we typically think of Jesus. Most of the examples the new testament writers use for Christian living are Jesus. And I think that is possibly the best example we can have, but I was struck with the idea that there was an example given to us long before that.

God.

I have often wondered about all the passages in the Old Testament where the prophets or historians talk about God thinking something or telling us what God was doing in certain situations, or even places where it says that God changed his mind or showed remorse or made a promise. From the first page of the Bible we have been given insight into the mind of God to teach us how to think and how to love and how to live and yet I don’t think we ever consider God a role model.

This thinking makes me go on to consider the possibility that the writers of the Old Testament had a different agenda in their documentation. These passages that sometimes trouble us where God changes his mind because of a prayer or shows remorse or considers a people with one language too powerful are not merely a record of a God who was struggling to keep the reigns on this wild mustang of a world he created, but a God that pulls back the curtain and says, “Look at the choices before me. Watch me do now what I have planned all along.”

He is revealing to us so much about his nature in these passages. And he calls us to imitate his nature. Even Christ defers to God when he says, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone.” (Luke 18:19)

I think there is so much to learn here and these thoughts have just scratched the surface. May have to go back and re-read the Old Testament with some new lenses on!

What do you think?

Thank you, Lord, for pulling back the curtain and showing us glimpses of your essence so we can have an example for how to live and think and be in this world. Thank you for Jesus living and walking and being among us for a time to give us another example to follow. Open our eyes to this amazing gift that we have been given and let us follow your lead each day.