The Bible is full of dysfunctional people

Whoa. Today I finished the book of Genesis. Now, I have grown up hearing and learning about the stories in Genesis. As an adult, I took a "Walk Thru The Bible" class, which gave an overview of the Bible. However, I have never read the entire book of Genesis in a few days like I just did. It was familiar and enlightening at the same time. My thoughts on Genesis are this: God sure didn't sugar-coat anything by putting some of the most dysfunctional people in the very first book of the Bible. In fact, the first family was pretty dysfunctional! HAHA! This is pretty funny to me in a validating sort of way. Think about it. There never has been a functional family!! I mean, Adam and Eve were without sin for a very short time, but soon after they ate the fruit from the tree they weren't supposed to eat from, their son murdered their other son!

And, every family after them was just about as messed up. There were a few shining stars, like Noah and Joseph. But, even Abraham, Isaac and Jacob did stupid stuff. Yet, through it all, God continued to love them. He still kept His promises to them. He was so patient with them!

I think those of us who have grown up in church hearing the stories of Abraham, Jacob and Noah, might place these guys on some kind of pedestal, since they're in the Bible. However, the cool thing is that they were ordinary people, like us, who sinned, lacked faith at times, made impulsive decisions, etc. I think it's kind of funny how we teach little kids all these stories of all these people in the Bible, almost like they are exalted in some way. I know that's how I grew up learning about them. When, in reality, they were just as screwed up as everybody else on this planet!

I think God put these guys in the Bible right away, so we could immediately see that we need Him - that we can't do this life on our own. We're going to mess up. Even so, He never changes His mind about us. He keeps His promises to us and keeps on loving us. Praise the Lord!!

On to Exodus....