Genesis 1 & 2

"Over the last hours I have come to understand other blessings from 'always remembering him.' I thought of a family in Albuquerque, New Mexico, I met years ago: a father, mother, and two teenage daughters who belonged to no church but read the Bible together every day. They pondered the Savior's life and his words. When we found them they had decided that Christ would have a church and that they should find it. They knew that it would have prophets and Apostles at its foundation because that is what Christ had left in his church in the meridian of time. They knew that the resurrected Lord had appeared to his Apostles."And so when we testified that God, the Father, and his Son, the Savior of the world, came to a boy prophet, Joseph Smith, that seemed right to them. When they heard us testify that Peter, James, and John appeared and restored priesthood, they knew that would have to have happened. And the Holy Spirit, which they also recognized, told them it was true. I realized sometime last night or early this morning that they recognized the truth, that this is the Church of Jesus Christ, in large part because they had always remembered him. Every day they had gathered to read about him and his words, and so they remembered him. And after they were baptized they were ready to follow the living prophet because they knew the Savior always speaks to his prophets to bless his people." Henry B. Eyring

It was a story from Albuquerque - cool, huh?! Anyway, that is true - the closer we are to Christ and the more we follow Him the more we realize that the church is true. It's a good cycle.

Ok, now I am going back to yesterday's class notes! First of all, a wonderful quote from my professor that I wrote down - "You just have to open your Book of Mormon and your fingertips start to get warm from the spirit...!" He was comparing the BoM and the Bible saying that a lot of times it can be harder to feel the spirit through the Bible because it isn't as pure, translated correctly, and it is harder for us to relate to the stories until we dig deeper... but, we can still feel the spirit when we read the Bible of course - just maybe for some of us it will take a bit more effort.

All right, our list on who is God... we have sets of descriptive words here

Group #1:
all knowing
lawyer: precise
power
control
provider
professor
protector
big talker
in charge

Group #2:
gives us a chance
interested
Father/friend
artist: into the details
approachable: one-on-one
allows choice
love
human characteristics
satisfied
facilitator
optimist
shares

Do you see a difference between the two groups? Interestingly enough we can see that first list mostly in Genesis 1 and the second list in Genesis 2. There seems to be a contradiction between His characteristics... the first group seemingly very much focused on justice and the second more on love and understanding. Do we sometimes wish for the justice side for our "enemies" and the mercy side for ourselves? I know I've done that before. After discussing it for a while we came to the conclusion that these aren't "separate sides" of God's personality, but rather 2 parts that make up the whole of who He is. In order to be perfectly just and perfectly loving, He has to be able to demonstrate all of these characteristics so that we can learn from Him. I don't know if I am making sense to you guys, but it makes sense to me in my head!

Genesis 1: top down (God's perspective - it ends with man)... very logical... the spiritual creation?
Genesis 2: bottom up (human perspective - it begins with man)... aesthetic: organic, the physical creation?

There are a lot of patterns/themes in genesis...
- violence & sex
- birthright violations
- parental favoritism (which seems to be the cause of a lot of problems!)

We talked about wells and the significance of them - there are a lot of times when prophets or other important people find their wives by a well. A well is a symbol of fertility and life. There is a pattern in almost every Bible "well scene."
1. man leaves home and travels far
2. meets a woman at a well
3. water gets drawn
4. woman rushes home (always the same Hebrew word for "rushes")
5. meal
6. betrothal

I've always heard my whole life that Rebekah was just so kind and generous to get all of those camels water (which it was a big job!), but somebody pointed out that she was also a very smart girl. Obviously those guys were rich with all of those camels laden with gifts and stuff... maybe we don't think enough about what her intentions might have been! No, I know she was a great woman (or girl, she probably was only about 14) with a lot of faith who really followed the spirit - because she did exactly what she needed to (what the Lord had said) to mark her as the chosen one. Sometimes I worry that I'm not following the spirit enough to do all that I need to. Every day a little bit better, right?