God's Beautiful, Colorful Story
Hello Blossoms!
On this dreary, Monday I wanted to share something that has greatly impacted me over the past year and a half. My church recently finished doing a chronological Bible study called the CBT (Chronological Bible Teaching). It was a study of stories in Scripture that as we went through it our worldviews were to be exposed, and reformed. We didn't study every book of the Bible or major story. Every morning during our devotional times we had a passage to read and a list of questions to answer. The questions were very practical and meant to focus our minds on the character of God and how He worked in each narrative.
We were on this journey for a year and a half and it shaped all of us very much. On the Sunday that marked the end of the CBT, my dad put together a summary in story form of everything we studied and saw. It was a beautiful, colorful story to reflect on and I knew right away that I wanted to share it. I edited and tweaked what my dad had written and added some beautiful pictures for you all to read and enjoy. It's a long read, but worth it in my opinion. ;)
Delight in our God and who He is through this beautiful, colorful story!
Purpose:
Why did God write us this magnificent story full of beauty? God tells us this story through His Word because He wants to be known, loved, and worshipped as He truly is. As you read I invite you to notice the ways God expresses this desire in each story and how His children, our fellow brothers and sisters, put this into practice.
Chapter 1: Creation
In the beginning, God created the world, the universe, and man. It was a masterpiece that reflected His consistency, His power, His authority, His beauty, and His relational nature. The climax of His creation was man who bore His image more fully than anything else. Man was created with the ability to have intimate experiences with God and to be in awe of Him. Man’s purpose and satisfaction are found in loving and obeying God.
Chapter 2: Fall
But, man chose to love himself and the things God created more than God Himself. This led to him disobeying God and bringing pain, suffering, and death into God’s perfect creation. But God, even in the midst of this, demonstrated His love for man and revealed that He had a plan to save man from the sin he had brought into the world. He promised He would use one of Eve’s descendants to destroy sin and win back the heart of man so that they would love and obey Him forever. But until then, man would experience the painful consequences of the choice they had made.
Chapter 3: Preparation
The next chapter in God’s story is a long one. In story after story, we see God faithfully working to fulfill His salvation plan while man is consistently rejecting God’s loving guidance as they did in the garden.
The first story we see is about Cain who attempts to honor God with his actions, but his heart desires glory for himself. God graciously tries to correct Cain, but he rejects this correction from God, kills his brother Abel, and establishes an alternate society of men and women who disregard God, don’t walk in His ways, and practice evil.
Eventually, almost the entire race of man follows in the footsteps of Cain. It’s painful for God to watch His beautiful creation live in such evil and destructive ways. God decides to wash His creation clea and start over. He destroys the earth and all mankind with a flood but spares one righteous man named Noah, along with his family.
Many years later, God chooses a man named Abram to start a new humanity with. God promises to bless Abram and work through him no matter what he does. God calls Abram to obey Him no matter what He asks him to do.
Abram, motivated by fear and unbelief, flees to Egypt. But God leads Pharaoh to let him and Sarai go and blesses Abram in the process.
Abram’s nephew Lot makes a decision that makes sense with physical eyes and chooses to live in close proximity to evil. He is unable to remain unaffected by the sin of his neighbors and ends up needing to be rescued by Abram. God destroys the wicked cities, but Lot experiences great consequences in his family because of his choice.
Sarai submits to Abram with Abimelech. God is pleased with her beautiful submission so he protects and rescues her.
Sarah and Abraham mistreat and discard their servant Hagar, but God sees her and cares for her.
God asks Abraham to sacrifice his only son, Isaac. Abraham trusts God and is willing to obey. God is greatly pleased with Abraham’s faith and creates a way out for him.
God helps Abraham’s servant find Rebekah as a wife for Isaac.
God chooses to bless Jacob over Esau before they were born. However, Jacob thinks he needs to manipulate his brother Esau and deceives his father Isaac to get blessings in life.
Jacob lusts after a young woman named Rachel and works for 14 years to get her as his wife. God blesses him in the midst of this sinful state.
Lean and Rachel have an ugly battle with each other to win Jacob’s love and find significance. God continues to bless them in this sinful state.
God chooses a boy named Joseph and gives him dreams about future blessings.
Joseph’s brothers are jealous of him and sell him into slavery but God continues to bless him and use these circumstances for Joesph’s ultimate good.
Joseph has a chance to get revenge on his brothers but chooses to forgive them instead because he understood and trusts in God’s sovereign plan. Joseph’s family and descendants end up living in Egypt for the next 400 years and eventually become slaves to the Egyptians.
God rescues a baby named Moses from death to be Israel’s deliver, but Moses ends up murdering an Egyptian and fleeing to Midian for 40 years.
God speaks to Moses in a burning bush and calls him to lead his people out of slavery in Egypt.
God uses Moses and Aaron to speak to Pharaoh as he brings plagues upon Egypt.
God sends an angel of death to kill all the firstborn males in Egypt, but the angel passes over all the houses that have faith in the blood put on the doorposts of their homes.
God leads Israel to be trapped by the Red Sea and then miraculously saves them from the Egyptian army.
Miriam questions Moses’ leadership and is judged by God.
While God is meeting face to face with Moses giving him the 10 commandments, God’s children are worshipping an idol they just made out of their own jewelry.
God sustains the children of Israel in the wilderness, but they ultimately choose to fear the people of Canaan rather than trust God.
A generation later, God works through the obedience of the people as they are led by Joshua to destroy the walls of Jericho.
God gives a Gentile prostitute named Rahab faith in Him and then spares her and her family from destruction.
God demonstrates His holiness and the importance of careful obedience by judging a man named Achan who disobeyed His instructions.
When Israel is stuck in cycles of sin and slavery, God answers their cries with judges to deliver them. He uses a wise prophetess named Deborah, a humble insecure man named Gideon, and a strong fool named Samson.
God uses the faith of a Moabite woman named Ruth and a God-fearing man named Boaz to demonstrate His ability to redeem.
God hears the pleas of a barren woman named Hannah and gives her a son. Hannah promptly gives him back to God.
Even though God has powerfully and lovingly led His children, Israel wants a king like the other nations, so God gives them a king, Saul.
God removes Saul as king because of his disobedience.
God chooses a boy named David to be king because of his heart for God.
God uses the faith of the boy, David, to defeat a giant warrior.
David sins against God by committing adultery and murder. God helps him see the ugliness of his sin and lets him experience the painful consequences of his sin so he would truly repent of it, which he does.
God allows Tamar to be exploited and then discarded by her brother. She spends the rest of her life in shame. She needed a better father and a better brother.
God gives Solomon great wisdom, but he ends up using it to advance his own pleasure, power, and glory.
Rehoboam rejects wise counsel from his elders and as a result, the kingdom of Israel is divided.
Jezebel controls her weak husband and leads Israel into wickedness and idol worship.
God allows Elijah to control the weather through prayer, be miraculously fed by ravens and a widow, and then raise the widow’s son from the dead.
God uses Elijah to demonstrate His power to Israel as he challenges the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel.
God speaks to Elijah through a gentle whisper in a cave after he flees from Jezebel.
Naaman’s servant girl tells him about a prophet in Israel named Elisha who could heal him of his leprosy.
Naaman believes her and receives healing.
God gives a prophet named Jonah a task that he does not want to do. Jonah attempts to reject God’s instructions, but God refuses to take “no” for an answer. In the end, God accomplishes what He wanted in spite of Jonah’s defiant spirit and bad attitude.
God uses a faithful young boy named Josiah to lead His people to repentance and obedience to His word.
God patiently sends prophet after prophet to king after king in both kingdoms. But just like with the prophet Jeremiah and King Zedekiah, the kings refuse to hear the prophets’ warnings and repent. This results in God removing the people of both kingdoms from their land.
While in exile, God, in His providence, uses a young woman named Esther to rescue His people from destruction.
God chooses a faithful leader named Nehemiah to help begin rebuilding the foundations of Israel on God’s word.
Intermission:
The groundwork for God’s great salvation plan has been laid. The soil has been tilled. The seeds have been sown. Now God waits. For 400 years. Nothing but silence.
Chapter Four: Salvation Comes
God chooses a young woman named Mary to be the mother of His Son, the Messiah, Jesus.
God promises that her Son will save His people from their sins and rule as the King of Israel forever.
As if God hadn’t done enough to prepare His people, God sends a man named John the Baptist to prepare people’s hearts to receive Jesus.
Jesus begins His ministry in the wilderness being tested and overcoming temptation with the Word of God.
Jesus publicly announces His ministry and begins choosing men and women to be with, to invest in, and to work through.
Jesus interacts with religious people who struggle to understand spiritual realities.
Jesus does miracles to validate that His teachings are from God.
Jesus forgives sinners and removes their shame. They respond with extravagant acts of worship.
Jesus sees the heart's motives underneath the behaviors of all people. He knows those who have true inward faith and those who have mere outward religious obedience.
Jesus offers grace and forgiveness to sinners that others treat harshly. But then He calls them to repent and live righteous lives.
Jesus desires that people would prioritize being with Him and listening to Him over serving Him. It is possible to be trying to do things for Jesus but be outside His will. Intimate relationships with Him will lead to being a part of His work and worshiping Him because of what you got to participate in.
Just as God promised Eve in the garden, Jesus crushes the great enemy of sin with His sacrificial death on the cross. God raises Him from the dead to proclaim that victory to all.
Chapter Five: The Family of God
The Spirit of Jesus continues the work of Jesus through His disciples as they proclaim what they have seen and heard from Him. God rapidly multiplies the number of people who repent of their sins, believe in His Son as their Savior and King, and become members of this new Kingdom.
The Spirit of God empowers all of God’s people to be Gospel witnesses regardless of status, ethnicity, or gender.
The Spirit of God leads Jesus’ followers to spread the message of Jesus’ salvation and Lordship to all peoples everywhere, just as God promised Abraham He would do.
Jesus continues to watch over His church to this day. He desires that they love Him, carefully follow His commands, and actively pursue their devotion and Holiness until He returns.
Conclusion:
This is God’s story. One that He wrote down for us to treasure and enjoy in all of its beauty and color. But guess what? This story is still happening. God is still writing His beautiful, colorful story in us! Our own stories can be written in the same way the rest of God’s story has been written. God did this… Jesus did that… and the Holy Spirit is doing this… God is manifesting His character in our lives right here, right now. Our lives are a part of His big story, despite our sinful selves. This is Good News, this is the Gospel.
To Him Be the Glory forever and ever. Yes and Amen.
A Rooted Scribbles Update:
I'm sure no one noticed, but I haven't posted since the beginning of this year, and the explanation for that is very simple. I needed to take a step back from pressuring myself to post and take some time to reassess my goals for this blog and its readers. During this time I decided I wanted to start posting once a month instead of whenever I feel like it. My goal with posting once a month is to give my readers, intentional, well-written content, not something I threw together on a whim because I felt bad for not posting anything for a while. With all of that, please keep your eyes peeled for a post from me next month!
A second update is just a fun idea I had. I'm sure most of you have seen newsletters or blogs that do this, but at the end of each post, I'm going to list some current favorites, whether it be a song, a TV show, food, clothing, etc. It'll give you a peek into what I've been up to or interested in that past month.
Monthly Favorites
Hair claws (no, not just because they're trendy, my long curly hair struggles with ponytails so these gentle hair holders have been a wonderful replacement).
Citizens by Jon Guerra.
The Ashtown Burials by N.D. Wilson (I read these over the course of two weeks and I am very salty about the fourth book's struggle to being published).
Hyacinths (they smell SO good).
Till next time, friends!
- Emily
