Genesis 22 A Lamb for an offering

When God asks us to sacrifice, he always provides a lamb in the bushes.

It's been a long week for me. A week of second guessing myself and choosing direction.  A week of travel, meetings, and family time that has caused me to wonder why I read and ponder and study the scriptures the way I do.  Why am I on this scripture journey? And that led me to consider if Abraham ever wondered why his love for God had brought him to the place where he was willing to listen to obedience and love for God over ethical reason, over family security?  His faith was so sure that he didn't know how God would answer his pleas, but he knew he had to obey, and that his answer would come in and through his obedience. In practicing obedience he would find the answers and understanding of God's law that he longed for.  God had kept his promise before, why would God forsake him now? He didn't know where the Lamb for an offering would come from, but surely as he prepared and did all that God required of him, he knew that the lamb would be there. He trusted God. And in trusting God, he learned to trust himself. God knew how Abraham would respond. The test was for Abraham to learn how Abraham would respond. 

Concerning Abraham, President Hugh B. Brown said,  

"God commanded Abraham to sacrifice Isaac because "Abraham needed to learn something about Abraham" (in Truman G. Madsen, The Highest in Us [1978], 49). 

Elder George Q. Cannon spoke about Abraham in the April 1899 Conference. He said: 

“Why did the Lord ask such things of Abraham? Because, knowing what his future would be and that he would be the father of an innumerable posterity, he was determined to test him. God did not do this for His own sake; for He knew by His foreknowledge what Abraham would do; but the purpose was to impress upon Abraham a lesson, and to enable him to attain unto knowledge that he could not obtain in any other way. That is why God tries all of us. It is not for His own knowledge; for He knows all things beforehand. He knows all your lives and everything you will do. But He tries us for our own good, that we may know ourselves. ... He required Abraham to submit to this trial because He intended to give him glory, exaltation and honor; He intended to make him a king and a priest, to share with Himself the glory, power and dominion which He exercised” (GeorgeQ. Cannon, in Conference Report, Apr. 1899, 66).

Sometimes it feels like when I sit down to write I am listening to obedience over reason. I don't have a clue how many people I am reaching?   Do my words matter? Is it a wise use of my time, my faith? But I know, like Abraham,  that God is reaching me: one person, one mother, one daughter, one sister, one grandmother, one handmaiden of the Lord, one family.  When there are so many other things I can with my time I wonder why I write so deeply about what I learn? The beauty is that every time I write... every time I am obedient to the promptings to analyze and present my thoughts on the scriptures, I find "a lamb" in the bushes, some surprise that God has prepared for me that I would not have seen if I had chosen to disobey. Usually it comes in a learned principal that raises my spirit up, or stabilizes the ground I stand on. Or it might teach me a new perspective that becomes imperative in my own families peril of survival, but not always. Sometimes it merely brings me peace. A peace that I am certain Abraham felt when he realized where his loyalties lay and the rewards that his faith would bring him and all of his likewise obedient progeny. 

The sister missionaries in my daughters mission

I have a daughter who is currently on a mission for our church. Her leaders have kept a mission blog and I read it from time to time. Tonight when I read through it I was amazed at how much sacrifice is given by each missionary and by each leader. There is one photo of the mission president and his wife washing dishes. Mission Presidents come from all walks of life: wealthy, poor, educated, not so educated, successful businessmen, farmers, sportsmen, educators, etc. When they come to serve the Lord they come to serve. The only prerequisite they need is a willing heart to sacrifice what or whom they love so that others can learn and feel of God's love.  Fortunately the law of blood sacrifice passed with the atonement by Jesus Christ. God now proves us by asking us to present our willingness to serve and love one another. It starts in our family with our spouse, our children, our parents and then moves to our neighbors our church community, our school or city of residence. We are asked to forsake selfish pleasures and desires for the welfare of something larger than ourself.  When we do this we find .... our own joys.  But mostly.. we find ourself. We discover what we hold dear. Each choice to serve and obey defines us. It draws us into the circle of God's love. 




It's not because God needs to know who we are and what we are capable of, it's because like Abraham who was given a commandment to sacrifice the very thing he had lived his entire life for, the very promise that God had given him, we are brought to our own personal trials so that we too might know where our loyalties and our joys lie. 


I have found that when I read and contemplate the scriptures each week, I am able to make my relationship with him more active. No longer am I a passive receiver of words.  By writing what I learn the lessons become imprinted on my heart and act as a guiding star in my daily decisions. How often have I considered Sarah and Abraham and their love for one another, their epic story of love, fidelity, faith, and what they sacrificed for me so that I might have a higher understanding of God's law. How grateful I am to my friend who challenged me a year ago to read Genesis. Never in my wild imaginations could I have conceived how profoundly this book of holy scripture would forever change me. By making a consistent effort to commit to feast on his words I have found great peace and comfort in my trials. I have learned to let anxiety pass me by and understood better what it means to trust in the Lord with all my heart, might, mind and strength. I have not known fewer trials, but I have had the strength to use my trials as stepping stones. And isn't it true that with each trial we face if we don't make it into a stepping stone, it becomes a stumbling stone that stresses us and causes us to loose our way. 

Concerning the stress and trials that Abraham went through to discover these truths Elder Neal A. Maxwell  said our lives “cannot be both faith-filled and stress-free....

“Therefore, how can you and I really expect to glide naively through life, as if to say, Lord, give me experience, but not grief, not sorrow, not pain, not opposition, not betrayal, and certainly not to be forsaken. Keep from me, Lord, all those experiences which made Thee what Thou art! Then let me come and dwell with Thee and fully share Thy joy!” (in Conference Report, Apr. 1991, 117; or Ensign, May 1991, 88 ).

Most focus in Genesis 22 is on  the fact that he is offering his son, that he has ignored the moral law of not killing your own, that it goes against everything God had taught him, or that it is just so horrible to consider that he would give his son. We focus on Isaac and his grief and pain. Abraham's sacrifice is hard to consider because Abraham's trial is our own. It is why we have a hard time pondering it. It is the sacrifice we forsake to serve another, to stand as a witness, to show God and ourself that the love within us is the love we believe it is. 

Genesis 19: 19-30 the city of Zoar.. a little one

Zoar: Means a little thing 

Have you ever been caught within the grasp of something that you knew was not good for you? Have you ever been given a second chance in life to succeed and to move forward and then all you could think of was exactly what you had just been freed from? 

Lot was given a second chance. He had been freed from his ties to the evil in Sodom. He says to the Lord, "thou hast magnified thy mercy... in saving my life." Clearly he understands his good fortune and what is about to happen. So why then does he not exercise his faith and move to the higher ground? 

What happens in verse 20 really caused me to think. Lot and his family are safe from destruction. He is free from the grasp of the sin that was consuming Sodom. It is here that he choose to push his luck and plead for what he is most comfortable for. Like an addict he can not own up to the truth that he would be alone with himself or his family, away from the city.   He must have Zoar, a little one. 

The question is what does he lose when he chooses to disobey the direction of God's servants to "escape to the mountain?" What does he lose when he purposefully chooses to fear "some evil" that might "take me?" Was he truly grateful for his being saved? Or was he only thinking selfishly (as sin causes us to do) If you consider that God's mercy and grace had just supplied him with three angels who saved him from destruction by leading him out of the city and plain, and that his faith had preserved him, why then could he not continue in faith and strength to the higher ground? 

I am considering now the many times in my life when I have been given or had to give instruction concerning how to change a situation for the better. On one occasion my initial instruction was to argue. In fact I did argue and discuss the situation with the Lord. It did not turn out as I would have first hoped. 

I am thinking now of Joseph Smith who, like Lot had not learned this lesson. He wanted what he wanted and did not want to do as he was instructed concerning the 16 pages of manuscript that he loaned to Martin Harris. It too did not turn out as he would have hoped. 

Lot was given instruction to move to higher ground. In stead of exercising faith and trust in the Lord's judgement he argued his need for his soul. Is it not a little one? my soul shall live. How often have we focused on what we could not do and not understood what the Lord knows we can do? 

After much petitioning the Lord gave in to Joseph Smith and the consequence was that the pages were lost. After much petitioning and the urgency of time, Lot's desire is "accepted," and Zoar, is not overthrown. Lot and his family are given permission to "escape thither" where they were able to watch the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah with brimstone and fire. 

What if they had gone on to higher ground? What if they had been busy putting their feet one in front of the other and had a different perspective of the destruction? How do you suppose it must have been for them to be on the same level, (the plain) as the destruction? What profit did they gain by being close to the destruction? If they had gone to higher ground would they have heard the cries or smelled the sulphur and pitch as it burned and itched their nostrils? Even if Lot was able to not turn and watch he had led his family here. What had he done to prevent their destruction? 

Lot's wife, we are told is unable to restrain her desire to watch her homeland destroyed. She turns back to the scene and is turned (literally or metaphorically it does not matter) into a pillar of stone. Why? Because of what she desired. Because of what her focus was on. 

How do we turn to stone? Is it something that comes from within? Was it anger that consumed her? Was it the willingness to forgo her family and leave them for the world she had just been led from? 

What is it like to be turned to salt? Did it happen in an instance or is this story, like many in the Bible, condensed to represent a longer period of time? Did she stew over it. Did she and Lot argue? Did her anger and loss overtake her to where she could no longer move and the sulphur and tar encapsulate her? 

What was the one little thing, the Zoar, that caused Lot's wife to turn her heart away from all that was good and allow herself to be hardened to all that God's love would bring? 

What is that Zoar in your life that God has led you away from, has given you direction for, has granted you grace and mercy for, and you have not understood. 

First Blackberrys and the First Family. Genesis 4:1-7

     The three girls bounded across my lawn toward me. As I sat on my porch watching them I couldn't help but to marvel at their joy. Their mother held the youngest on her hip while the older two wrapped their long arms around two large round containers that brimmed with blackberries.  

    My neighbor had walked over with her girls to share her family’s harvest with us. I felt is was a gracious and generous gesture and one that God used to teach me a valuable lesson.

“This represents the first of our blackberry harvest." She said.  "We wanted to thank you for not cutting down the blackberry bushes last fall.”

 Her youngest momentarily overcame her shyness and peeked her head out from behind her mother’s legs.  As she did our eyes met and I found myself smiling with her.

   “ Is this true?” I asked the youngest. “Are these the veeeeeery first blackberries?”

Her young eyes widened and as she looked at her mother, she nodded yes.

   "Well then, I will have to make a blackberry cobbler. Or could I eat them with milk and sugar?” As I spoke I searched the girls for a response. They in turn were searching me for my response. As I thanked them I gave them the biggest smile I could and told them to check out my strawberry patch before they left. 

     I tried to explain to their mother that it wasn’t necessary for them to give us the first of their harvest.  But she was adamant. They were very grateful to my husband and son for not mowing down the blackberry bushes. It was about gratitude. 

     Last fall, my son, new and overzealous in his lawn mowing job, had decided that he would also mow the front portion of the vacant lot next to us.  He did not realize the strip was filled with succulent blackberry vines. Our neighbors had asked him to not mow the area where the blackberries flourished. He gladly complied. 

    I didn't think much about their gift until I was contemplating why the Lord became upset with Cain. And what happened that caused Cain's countenance to fall?  Why had our neighbor been so adamant that her girls bring us the first and best of their harvest?  It wouldn't have mattered to me, but it seemed to matter greatly to their mother. Why? 

    I think it has something to do with respect and wanting to be accepted. Cain was a tiller of the ground. His brother Able was a herder of sheep. Although the Lord had given Adam and Eve explicit instructions on how to show their respect to Him and how to offer sacrifices, I don't believe it mattered what you offered as much as how you offered it. God was not going to condemn Cain for his choice of profession, but he did question Cain on the lack of faith he showed when making his offering. 

    When my sweet neighbor girls came to me and offered the first of their blackberries, they searched my face for acceptance. They wanted me to acknowledge not so much the blackberries ( I will greatly enjoy them) but mostly the fact that they offered me a gift that was meant to show respect. We had respected their wishes to not cut the path of land where the berries grew and they expressed their gratitude for the respect we gave them in doing so. 

    Cain didn't do this. How do we know? Because God did not have respect for Cain's offering.(vs5) God loves all his children and is not a respecter of persons but if the offering that Cain offered showed disrespect, then the Lord God would need to correct the standard. 

    My three little friends offered their gift on faith. Faith helped them pick with the belief that I would be pleased with their gift. Faith helped them bound across my lawn in joy. Faith helped them receive the simple reward of neighborly friendship and a jaunt in my strawberry patch. 

    So what was so different about Cain's offering? I believe he offered not the first of his crop and possibly not the best. He did not make his offering in faith.  If you offer a sacrifice in faith you give the first and the best of your efforts. If you yield to Satan's temptations you are not seeking for the Lord's approval but rather for a "Zero Sum Mentality."...I.E. A zero sum mentality says that  if I give to you, the you have to give back full fold to me. If I do all that you ask, I get to choose all that I want. I am in charge. I get what I want and what I want is to have you respect me by giving me what I want not what you choose. 

   ' Zero Sum Mentality' represents selfish desires that put your wants above all else. It does not require faith in a loving greater being, but rather relys on the rules of fairness. Cain not only didn't offer his sacrifice in faith in the Lord but he chose to obey Satan above God. Zero Sum Mentality makes it really hard to find acceptance because the only person that you are really interested in is yourself. When we have faith in others and in God, however we are able to find acceptance in all that God has given us, in the love of community, and above all else in the Lord's commandments. God's love is our reward. 

   The fact that Cain was wroth with the Lord's response surprised the Lord. He had been given a commandment to offer a sacrifice in faith. Cain had offered it out of obligation and out of obedience to Satan's plan of selfishness. He had chosen what he had wanted to give and not given of the first of his fruits nor of the best. 

   I am grateful to the Lord for the many gifts I have. I am grateful for the opportunity to serve others and to live in such a way that I might offer my sacrifices to my Lord. I am aware that there are times when my own countenance falls, when the Lord reprimands me and says, "If thou doest well, thou shalt be accepted." It is in these times that I go to the Lord in prayer and seek forgiveness for my wanting fairness more than his love. 

Verses. 

1.  The First Family -  Adam knew Eve. The first pregnancy. The first son. Cain. The first gratitude... 

I have gotten a son from the Lord. 

2. The first professions. Able is younger than Cain. The First Family has difficulties in teaching two different spirits. And in Moses we are taught that they also had daughters, so we have the first community springing up. 

4. And he Lord had respect unto Able and to his offering. 

By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts: and by it he being dead yet speaketh. (Hebrews 11:4) 

 5But unto ^aCain and to his ^boffering he had not ^crespect.  - 

Woe unto them! for they have gone in the way of Cain, and ran greedily after the error of Balaam for reward, and perished in the gainsaying of Core.( Jude 1:11)

5. The first anger. And Cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell.

Anger actually has a cycle. 

1. Fear 2. Pain 3. Anger 4. Grief 5. Hatred 6. Revenge 7. Atrocity

Cain's anger begain with his fear of losing his crop. He loved his crop more than the Lord. 

6.  Why is thy countenance fallen? When you see someone who is angry, their soul is dark. They hold their head and shoulders low. They walk with a drag to their step. Anger is a heavy load to carry. 

 7If thou doest well, shalt thou not be ^aaccepted? and if thou^bdoest not well, ^csin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be ^dhis^edesire, and thou shalt rule over him. What does God mean to doest well? I think he is trying to teach us to live by faith. To Let Go and Let God! To love man more than increase. To practice the discipline of contentment. 

If thou doest well, thou shalt be accepted. And if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door, and Satan desireth to have thee; and except thou shalt hearken unto my commandments, I will deliver thee up, and it shall be unto thee according to his desire. And thou shalt rule over him; Moses 5:33 

I will ever hold dear to my heart the precious memory of my young neighbors bringing the joy of their gift to me. A gift that was given in faith and in joy.

Seeking wisdom Ecclesiastes 1

Ecclesiastes 1

Mark 16:26

For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?

Today I take a sidetrack from the Book of Mormon and read from the books of Solomon. Solomon is credited with three books from the Old Testament: Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Psalms. All were very poetic in their verse.

How I read it:

• 1. I read it through one (two) times.
• 2. I went back and thought deeply about certain verses that jumped out at me and I asked questions?
• 3. I tried to imagine that I was the author. Why would I say what I said this way? What was his mood? (Somber) What was his intention?
• 4. I tried to remember something about Solomon to help me. What I couldn’t remember I looked up.
• 5. Finally, I was able to pull from it what was pertinent to me.

Life can be hopeless, if you let it. Wisdom comes to those who seek it, and when we find the knowledge needed to make us wise, it often brings us sadness. Why? Because, true wisdom does not come from knowledge (alone) of this earth which is cyclical, repetitive, and predictable. It is not until you add the element of God’s spirit into your life do you find something that will lift you above the mundane. Something that is able to help you make choices based not on pattern, but on truth that comes from an eternal source.

What is the difference in wisdom and profit? Why was Solomon bemoaning the fact that he could not have any real profit from doing his earthly labor? How you think Solomon saw profit? Did he include wisdom in his equation of profit? Wisdom is knowledge + spirit. Wisdom is knowledge + experience. Without a touch of experience to season our knowledge, knowledge is a valuable as vanity. Without the spirit to season our knowledge it brings us little gain. When you think of it this way, you can find a new understanding of Solomon’s words.

I have known quite a few older people in my life. I watch these older people. Why? Because I want to see if they have found the secret of life, or are they tired, lonely and angry. The ones that are happy, really happy with a smile that burns through to your soul, are the ones that have kept a higher law. They are not shy about telling you so. They have an energy about them that draws you to them. And when you are around them, you feel alive, full of hope and you begin to cultivate a desire to have wisdom. I think that we have a choice in life to choose to be a battery charger or a battery drainer. When we choose God, we become a charger.

I once met an older man at a social gathering. When his son introduced me to him, it was like plugging into a battery charger. He was in his late 80’s, but carried the demeanor of a much younger man. His smile spoke volumes about his faith. I knew from knowing his son that he (my friends father) was a man of great faith, but I didn’t have to be told that. His faith was apparent in his aura, in the way he treated others, in his smile and his consideration for others. He was happy! No he was full of joy! Happy comes from earthly experience, Joy comes from God.

When we get our energy from something “above the sun”, when we find our wisdom from keeping God’s commandments we forego the frustrations of life. We forego the difficulties and the seemingly endless cycles of life that “run into the sea” and “return again”.

You can read this with a touch of pessimism as many have, or you can read the first chapter of Ecclesiastes with a touch of optimism. It does get rather boorish listening to Solomon recount the reasons that life without the spirit does not bring profit, but I believe he is trying to emphasis these points so that he can help us understand where exactly our focus should be if we want to have true profit from our lives.

(Words and Phrases)

Vs 2 Vanity.. all is vanity. Vanity: worthless, pride, narcissistic, egotism. Basically anything that you can't take with you when you die.

Vs 3 What profit our work for this life? When we die do people really remember what we did or didn’t do to make a living? I have done a great deal of genealogy work and discovered that when we die we are most remembered for whom we lived with, where we lived, and the families that we bore. Sadly, we are also often remembered for the “skeletons” we create. The best way to be remembered in this life is to be kind. To be forgiving. To love another human being. When we become too caught up in our work, in ourselves, in our vanities… then we become part of the life cycles that never end, and never change. We must live a higher law.

Vs. 4 One generation passeth away.. another cometh. The families of man are born. They die. And the earth on which we live abides.

Vs. 5 A day.. a cycle in the time we have here on earth. A small circle of time in the larger span of time in our existence here.

Vs. 6 according to its circuits – even the wind has its patterns. Meteorologist know the patterns of wind. They are daily, seasonal, and patterned. Forever

Vs 7 all the rivers. – the cycle of water it comes from the rivers, to the sea, and back again. It is a never-ending cycle of moving water.

Vs 8 full of labor – No matter what man does for his labor, he will never be satisfied. There is not contentment in a world where the cycles of life are never ending.

Vs 9 no new thing - Elements. We are made of elements. The world within which we live is made of elements. There is no new thing. It just all gets transferred from one phase of the cycle to the other.

EXCEPT WHEN we show kindness, show love. This is new. To the soul that receives it, it is new. Spiritual truths, spiritual gifts, spiritual kindness always brings newness. New ideas, renewed hope, understanding. When the spirit has gone out of us, when we loose hope then we are merely elements awaiting our cycle to turn its course.

Vs 11 no remembrance of former things – I believe this is a reference to the veil. We cannot remember our lives before. When we are on this earth, we must be content with the elements that exist. We cannot know what is to come (after this life)

Vs 13. I GAVE MY HEART TO SEEK AND SEarCH OUT BY WISDOM -

Enough said. Give your heart to know wisdom. Wisdom comes from God.

Vs 14vexation of spirit – Solomon is frustrated because he wants more. He was the king over Israel. He does not understand the prophets, the hope the promise. Or if he does he still wants more and God will not give it to him.

Vs. 18 he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow – knowledge alone will not bring us joy or lift up our spirit. Knowledge used for vanity brings sorrow. At the end of the book Solomon will tell us that knowledge used for service of God brings joy

.

As I read this first chapter of Ecclesiastes, I was reminded to consider that a life lived for oneself is vanity. Vanity is worthless and meaningless. There can be little joy in labor that does not serve a higher purpose.

But wisdom can be found within the cycle of life. It comes in keeping God's commandments and learning to understand God's ways.

One of the greatest gems I received today was the realization that the spirit of giving renews us all. We all have a spirit of goodness within us. We all have a spirit of God. We can choose to ignore it and live a life of drudgery, or we can choose to embrace it and help bring a new spirit to those we meet, we work with, to those we love. We can do this by giving our heart to search out wisdom.