By Karen Y. Stevens

I have been on a journey of soul searching these last few months.

I feel like my attitude has become like Solomon – everything is futile.

Sue, my walking buddy and I, were talking about hormones the other day, and how they can change your attitude. I thought, “this is not fair”. It’s already hard enough trying to be the person God wants you to be, without a natural process ripping you from all your hormones, leaving you venerable and an “I don’t care attitude”.

And this is just not only women.

As we read God’s word, there is always a story that shows us that God allowed them to age, go thru trials, have their own personality traits, throw tantrums, and the list goes on. God also allowed murder in a form of punishment in the Old Testament.

In Numbers 15:36 it says, “So the assembly took him outside the camp, and stoned him to death, as the Lord commanded Moses.”

I read things like this and I am blown away.

The Lord commanded them to stone someone to death for collecting wood on the Sabbath, yet in the 10 Commandments it says “Thou shalt not kill”?

Abraham takes Isaac to the mountains to sacrifice under God’s blessing, and even though God knew He would offer an alternate sacrifice; Abraham didn’t know this. I know the lesson in Abraham’s story is to be obedient no matter what, but I can’t help looking at the other side.

We all have teachings from our childhood, that mold our way of thinking. I can’t begin to know how they thought back then. What was their teaching? Slavery, stoning? These things were everyday life to the Israelites. What is our teaching today that would be foreign to them?

In today’s society, I’m sure they would find it strange and appalling, that we don’t hold each other accountable for our sins, when they would stone someone to death for collecting wood on the Sabbath. As a matter of fact, most of us condone people who sleep with someone they are not married to, or those who cheat on their taxes, insurance claims, etc. We never speak out against things that we know are the opposite of God’s teaching.

I remember when I was young, reading the story of Sodom and Gomora, wondering how an entire town could be supporting that many “Gay” people. I know now, how that can happen. People just quit speaking out in fear of not being “political” correct. (I’m sure I’ll get several stern emails regarding that comment alone.) David’s niece is practicing a lesbian lifestyle, and we love her dearly, just not what she does; but we have had the conversation. She approached us, not the other way around. Growing up, she was under the tutelage of a loving Grandfather, who was a loving Pastor. She knows how God feels about the subject, yet she does exactly the opposite.

I know the above subjects seemed to be a hodgepodge of items, but my main theme for most of my articles are, that we need to spend more time in God’s word. We learn His likes and dislikes thru the Bible, so we can act accordingly. Satan and or, our feeble minds, will make all that knowledge fade, if we don’t keep reminding ourselves, and rereading.

If you join a Bible study, by doing homework, it makes it so much easier to read God’s word. Whatever your method is, as the Nike commercial says, “Just Do It!”

 

Karen Y. Stevens is the founder of the Orange County Christian Writers Guild