The Bible: A Book for All Ages

The Bible: A Book for All Ages

Hey everyone,

I have come into some exciting times, and after over a decade of feeling lost, abandoned and hopeless, I had to share what helped me to find my way back.

I was in an abyss of fear and worries, except now I understand that these are the distractions/road blocks put in our way to pull our focus, love and commitment to God away. I thought I was doing everything right, but Satan’s machinations are much more complicated and cunning than we can imagine. He is fluent in human psychology he understands how we think, and react and he knows our weaknesses better than we do.

How did I lose my way?  I stopped giving God ALL the glory, and instead I attributed all the blessings in our life to my husband. This isn’t to say that he isn’t a wonderful man, because he is, but God works THROUGH us, we are not independent of him. I still thanked God for the blessings, but subconsciously I didn’t give God the glory.

When things in our life turned sour, and the trials came, I also blamed God: “What have I done to deserve this, Why are you testing me so….? The list goes on, in addition to blaming God I also blamed my husband, big time. This put a HUGE strain on our marriage, I am surprised actually that it survived.

Don’t get me wrong I loved God, I went to church, I talked to him all the time, but there is so much more to being faithful and obedient to God, and this leads into the purpose of this post. To understand God’s expectations of us, we need to study the guide that he gave us; the Bible.

This world is our boot camp, we are given a life span to learn about God.  Before I start a a disclaimer:

I am not an expert in theology or even the Bible, I have just begun to really read it myself, but what I feel and what I am gaining and understanding is too exciting not to share.

Once, I understood that I was off of God’s path, and getting farther away everyday, I knew that something had to change. God was continually calling me back to the path, the thoughts that I had questioning why this was happening, and what I needed to do were placed there to get me thinking at a deeper level.

We are all at different stages in our lives, I wish I was farther along, closer to God, more faithful and definitely more trusting than I am, but that’s okay because he understands that and he accepts us where we are at, while gently encouraging us to grow.

I remember praying to God during those difficult times to just tell me what to do, or give me a map for all of my choices, so that I would know what to do. It’s funny to think that what I was asking for, was available to me, the Bible, whenever I was ready to finally admit that I was only giving less than a fraction of my attention, focus and energies to following his path.

That is where I am today, over the last couple of months, I have started reading the Bible, and it is AMAZING. I even started at the beginning, and am only into Leviticus, it blows my mind that if I have learned so much already from the first few books of the Bible, how much else is in store for me.

I’ve been thinking A LOT about the Bible, reading the word and mulling over the meanings. It has occurred to me how intrinsically different the Bible is from any other book written.

Did you know that the Bible was written in three languages, is about 611,000 words long, was written by more than 40 authors from diverse backgrounds, and it contains songs, stories/parables, dreams, law, history, poetry, prophecy, genealogy and narrative. Did you know that it was written over a period of 1,500 years! If that hasn’t blown your mind, here is what I have discovered.

The Bible: Is like a Video Game

The Bible has levels and dependent on where we are at in life is when different levels of understanding and insight are opened to us. As I mentioned earlier, I have just begun to read the Bible for myself, when life’s troubled waters started to overwhelm me I felt the urge to pick up the Bible, but another part of my mind kept saying what in the world will you find. The book I was reading at the time was pretty dry. I remember thinking that if I just opened up the Bible randomly would I magically find the answer. I didn’t have to worry I picked up where I had last left off, and the answer was there.

So this has led me to a realization that in order to best prepare ourselves and our families for the Coming, we need to start reading the Bible, at least weekly, from conception on and here is why.

Remember earlier where I said this life is like a boot camp, well in order to prepare for boot camp we need to prepare our bodies and minds. While some people may be able to go into boot camp and make it through the first phase, they may struggle with the lifestyle later on in life and quit, why because they didn’t prepare. For us this boot camp isn’t just a few short months, everyday, every moment of our lives we will be tested, if we are not studying up and following the rules we will soon become lost, and our only life line is God.

The Preparation

It is not a coincidence that the Old Testament is considered the Preparation, and in order to prepare our children for the Coming they need to be prepared. I am going to use the analogy of building a house to explain why we should be reading the Bible from conception to our last days.

Often when people think of building a home, the first thing they think of is you need a solid foundation, but I want to take a step back and look at those beginning years from conception through five as the Preparation period, pre-foundation. Before we lay the foundation, we need to familiarize our children with God. This is a time to read about God’s love to our children, to build a preliminary base of awareness of their Creator.

Our children need to see us learning about and interacting with God on a regular basis, they need to understand that he is always present. It is so important to instill, Faith, in them from the beginning.

For five years I worked with Native Americans in the field of suicide and substance use/abuse prevention. Everyone was searching for the answer to protective factors to armor our children from taking their lives. I wanted so badly to shout out that we need God in our lives, but I knew that they weren’t ready or open to hearing that. It broke my heart to continually hear how many children and adults have taken their lives, because they felt so hopeless and lost.

Our children need to understand that Faith belongs to God and God alone, that we as their parents will do everything in our power to care and protect them and that God demands they respect us, but our Faith needs to lie with God. Whether we mean to or not we will make mistakes and we will disappoint, so please, please the strongest protection factor for our children no matter what age is God. God is hope.

Remember that the purpose of reading the Bible to your children is to prepare them, don’t fall into the trap of using it like we use Santa Clause if you don’t do this, this will happen. Go into reading it as a sharing time, and let God take the lead.

The Manifestation

It is said that the Gospels are the Manifestation; something theoretical made real. I’ve heard a lot of talk about manifesting things. Up until a moment ago I wasn’t really sure what to think about it. Personally, for me it works best to just pray to God and give thanks and credit for all his blessings.

As your children get older, and you delve deeper into the Bible, they will have questions, I still have questions lol, don’t worry if you don’t have the answers. Reassure them that this is okay, no one knows all of the answers, only God does, and he reveals those answers in the Bible when you are ready. Remind them this is why it is important that they continue to turn to the Bible even into adulthood. This is the time to begin to build a foundation of Faith.

A good example of this is in Genesis, with Adam and Eve. God warned Adam and Eve to not eat from the tree of Knowledge, why because he knew that it was too much information for them to understand, let alone use responsibly. If you look at humanity and the decisions that we made and continue to make, we still do not understand the knowledge that was unleashed. If they had just waited I can only imagine the wonders that we would be seeing now, I guess those will have to wait until The Coming.

The Propagation

As we enter into adulthood with all of it’s  responsibilities, life becomes a juggling act; between family, work, bills etc… If those aren’t distracting enough this is the time when our faith and beliefs in God will be challenged the most. As parent’s you prepared the site and poured a foundation for your children to build their house of Faith. The rest of the building process falls to them. You will always be there to guide them, but now is a time for them to put up the structure of the home.

Much like the three little pigs we risk the house being blown down if we don’t build it properly/strong enough, this isn’t a time to be taking shortcuts we need to continue to study the Bible to strengthen the walls, because storms are coming.

For each generation the number of  believers continue to fall away. The attacks on Christianity are more and more blatant with schools and colleges across America hosting/holding seminars disavowing God. Don’t let this scare you, continue to turn to the Bible all of the answers are there, and remember that what you read yesterday may hold a new meaning today.

Remember, the boot camp analogy? This life was never meant to be easy, if we are not tried and tested over and over we will NOT be prepared we cannot even imagine how difficult the end of times will be.  The Bible directs, guides and prepares but we will still have to endure the trials ahead.  Those who want to disavow God will try to use this against you. They will say if God is such a loving God why doesn’t he stop all of the bad things.

Remember we cannot possibly understand the infinite knowledge that God has seen of how things will be. Keep the Faith God knows the truth. Was it easy for Abraham, Moses, or Joseph…. No they were tested they had their doubts and fears, but despite the hard times, despite the doubts they did as they were asked, and they were rewarded for their faithfulness.

The Explanation

No matter how long man has been around, we still act and think as if we know it all we allow others to convince us that the Bible and it’s teaching are outdated, or they are a guideline but not a hard set rule. When you set rules for your children, do you set them with the expectation that they are not going to follow them? We are God’s children, I guarantee you one thing God is not playing around and he definitely expects us to follow his rules, just read the Old Testament and see what happened to those who did not obey.

I am now in my 50’s the clock is ticking, none of us know how much time we have, we are all on the homestretch some of us closer than others. We need to keep reading the Bible because what we read in our younger days, will now hold an even deeper meaning.

No matter where you are in your life stages, circumstances…you are going to discover that the Bible was made to be a living document. Trust that God knew what we would be going through in the 21st century, even when the book of Genesis was first penned in 1445 BC.

Whether you are old, young, happy, sad, content… God has it covered. The Bible truly is a book that guides, and speaks to  each of us wherever we are at in our life’s journey. It is not meant to be read, put aside and forgotten, it is a living document, it is YOUR personal map to an eternal life free of worries and burdens. Keep reading your Bible to the end of your days, because each day is like opening up another book and finding new and wondrous things. There is no time like the present.

          What are your experiences with reading the Bible?