So for Latter-day Saints in Sunday School this year we are studying the Old Testament. I have a bit of a confession and I know it may seem unbelievable but I've never really liked the Old Testament. I just never could wrap my head around it and figure out what it had to do with me. Sure some of the stories are great but I would kind of stick to the basic Primary versions of what I knew and leave all the rest of that non-sense for another time. I just simply as a whole never thought of the Old Testament as the really spiritually nourishing food for thought that I found in the other books. I mean seriously I never figured out what was going on with half of the people in there - I mean Jonah and Sampson and David and well, pretty much everyone if you really start getting into their stories had some deep issues and it just didn't make sense!
Well back in October I started in on the challenge from Heather at Women in the Scriptures to read the standard works in a year specifically looking at women in the scriptures. You can check it out for more details on her blog. Anyways, I started off in the Old Testament and something amazing has happened. I finally am learning to love the Old Testament. Really love it!
Some of the history and customs and stuff still confuse me and because of the challenge it's not my intent to really dig into those this time around although I look forward to doing so sometime in the near future after I'm done with this. Like I said, a big part of my avoidance of the Old Testament is that I never really understood how so many of these people are considered heroes and role-models when it's obvious that they did a lot of bad things. This time I think I'm beginning to understand. I think perhaps age has gifted me a lesson that I desperately needed to learn.
Being a hero doesn't mean that you are perfect. God calls imperfect people all the time. As Elder Holland said in the April 2013 General Conference - "Except in the case of His only perfect Begotten Son, imperfect people
are all God has ever had to work with. That must be terribly frustrating
to Him, but He deals with it. So should we. And when you see
imperfection, remember that the limitation is not in the divinity of the work."
These people weren't perfect. David was considered an adulterer and murderer. Sampson had women issues. Rachel stole idols. Sarah laughed. Pretty much everyone had their problems that they had to work through. We don't get to see a lot of those behind the scenes moments that help us to sort out the different sides to their story but what we can see is that the Lord took these imperfect people and accomplished great things through them. He did it because He loved them and He wanted the very best for His people. He looked beyond their limitations and tried to help them see something greater in themselves. I think we know these people as heroes now not because they were perfect. We know them as heroes because even with all of their faults and failures they did their best to love God and let Him work through them, and were able to be blessed and bless others because of it. That's something that I can feast on with joy.
What are some of your favorite Old Testament stories and people?
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