Old Testament Reflections

 Happy Wednesday! 

Last Saturday I finished reading through the entire Old Testament from Genesis to Malachi! It took me a long to do, almost two years I think, but I have officially reached the New Testament. In my 21 years of life, I had never read the entire Bible all the way through and in the summer of 2019 I was inspired by Nate Buzz and all of his posts on his Instagram about the importance of being in the Word to try and read the whole Bible. I didn't want to put a time constraint on myself, like having to read the Bible in a year. I wanted to take my time and go slow. I realized during my reading of the Old Testament that I have my whole life to know Jesus and the Word better. As a follower of Christ, my main pursuit in life is and should be to become more like Jesus and know Him better every day. That gave me comfort as I took the reading of the Bible slowly knowing that God willing I would have my whole life to dig deeper into the Word. Reading from front to back cover is the first step and something that I think every Christian should aspire to do at least once in their life. How can we say we truly know God if we haven't read the entire Word at least once (even if it's not front to back, just as long as you've read every book in the Bible). And I hadn't. I know I hadn't read every book in the Bible. I think I've read every book in the New Testament at one point, but I know for sure I had never read every book in the Old Testament. That didn't sit well with me.

So, even though there were passages and sections and even entire books I didn't fully understand, I read through them all. Sometimes I dug deeper and sometimes I told myself I would go back later and dig deeper because my main goal was to just soak up the Word and read all the way through it. I will pretty much have to go back and dig deeper into all the prophecy books because more than half of the time I had no idea what most of it was about haha Especially Isaiah. There were certain sections and passages that were clearly about Jesus but everything else... I didn't understand most of it. I'll also have to go back through the later books from Nahum to Malachi because there was a lot of parts I didn't understand. But the important thing is that I got all the way through them.

It was such an amazing experience. I truly felt like God spoke to me and led me during so many mornings of reading through the Old Testament. Creating a habit of reading through the Old Testament every morning even if it was just a few chapters grounded me in a way that I needed so much during some of the hardest moments. I think God convicted me and led me to do this in 2019 because He knew what was coming in 2020 and that I would need a habit of being in the Word throughout that year. And in the later months of 2020 during a time, when I questioned my faith and confused and didn't know what to think... God saved me in other ways but in a huge way through me reading through the Old Testament every single morning. Without that, 2020 and the questions and so much trying to lead me astray would have been even harder to fight than it already was.

And now I get to dive into the New Testament! I get so excited when I get to read the gospels. I know I can read them at any time I want, but since I've been in the Old Testament for so long it feels so special to get to read the gospels. When I read through all four of them in September it felt like a breath of fresh air and I saw Jesus and the gospels in a different way than I had before. I thought I would be kind of like eh about reading through them again only a month later after having read through again. Like I thought I would be like uph I have to read these again even though I just read them last month and they're still fresh on my mind... but when I turned the page into Matthew, I felt really excited and kind of giddy that I get to be in the New Testament with Jesus and the disciples and all the letters. I think being in the Old Testament for such a long time every single day for like two years revitalized my love and excitement for the New Testament in a way I didn't expect.

As I've drawn nearer to the end of the Old Testament, I knew I wanted to do a post reflecting on what I learned from the Old Testament. I've racked my mind and thought about it for weeks, and there's always one thing that keeps coming to mind. It surprised me in a good way. I feel like when it comes to the Old Testament most people and Christians think of judgement. They think of God's just character, His righteous jealousy and righteous anger. And those are all a part of God's character. God is a jealous God. He wants us to be His and His alone. God has righteous anger, and He is the ultimate and perfect form of justice. I don't know about you, but I've always viewed those things in a negative light. I thought about all the judgement in the Old Testament and had a hard time reconciling that with Jesus and God from the New Testament. But God from the Old Testament and God from the New Testament is the same God. He is the same. He is never changing and neither is His character. That's one of the things I realized while reading the Old Testament. I always knew that but it really clicked for me while reading through the Old Testament and then the gospels in September. God is the same through every generation and every time.

But the number one thing that I took away from the Old Testament is God's mercy and lovingkindness. Yes, there was judgement in the Old Testament, but even that I see in a different light after doing research and digging deeper into different books of the Bible. God does discipline Israel, but He does it with love for His people and with the intent of bringing them back to Him because every time Israel is disciplined it's because they've strayed from Him and have dug a hole for themselves. The discipline from God they experience are consequences for their own sins and turning away from God. And I think a lot of people focus only on the discipline. Only on the bad things God caused to happen to Israel. But we have to remember that His chosen people kept turning against Him and sinning even though they knew better. They were fickle. And every time God had to go to drastic measures to bring them back to Him. Every single time there was always hope. There is hope woven into every single line of the Old Testament. Even when the prophets are declaring judgement against the Israelites, almost always it ends with the Lord saying that a remnant will live and that He will fulfill his covenants and His promises. There is always hope for a brighter and better day for the Israelites through God because of His mercy and lovingkindness.

God doesn't have to show mercy. He could have let all of those He disciplined and judged live miserable lives because they sinned against Him and turned away from Him. They deserve that. And yet every time for His chosen people he showed them mercy and brought them out of the darkness. It may have been years or even generations later, but He never once let them remain in darkness. Even in that darkness, He spoke through the prophets to give His people hope and to remind them that He will keep a remnant of the people, that Israel will prevail because He is a God who keeps His promises even when we don't. That theme reminds me of Jesus. We're fickle people. All of us. We sin and we put other things before God and yet God didn't let us remain in darkness. He sent down Jesus, the hope that is woven throughout all of the Old Testament and was spoken about by so many prophets. Even though we didn't deserve it and we do deserve discipline and judgement, He gave us Jesus and saved us from that because He is a merciful God and lavishes His lovingkindness upon us. Even after being saved we fall into old habits, we still sin and we still make mistakes and yet God forgives us these sins through Jesus and shows us mercy every single time.

Even in a story that perplexed me for a long time and I think many other Christians of Pharaoh and the judgement God put before Egypt during the plagues... He showed mercy. God gave Pharaoh so many chances to release his people! He gave him ten chances! Ten plagues and every time Pharaoh refused. God showed even Pharaoh mercy by giving him ten chances and because Pharaoh hardened his heart, he had to suffer the consequences for his actions. He refused God's mercy and every chance given to him.

That's what I got out of the Old Testament. Our God is a merciful God in a way that we don't even deserve and yet He shows us his mercy anyway. He is good in the worst and best of times. His discipline and the trials and tribulations we go through isn't meant to hurt us or harm us, it's meant to draw us closer to Him because He knows that the best thing for us is to be in His presence. Because He loves us so much that He will do anything to draw us back to Him.

If you haven't read from Genesis to Malachi yet, I highly recommend it. It's an eye opening and amazing experience. It helped me know God better than I ever have before and it gave me an anchor during some very hard storms. Even if it takes you a year or two years or three years, dive in and commit to reading a little bit every day.