My favorite book of the Bible is the Book of Psalms. In this book, we can access the entire range of human emotion and human response to God - going from quiet contemplation to extreme violence... from the highs of joy to the depths of sorrow. It really is a snapshot of our life with God.Psalm 1 gives us the image of a "tree planted by streams of water" and the author asks us to draw two trees, one as our life is now and one as it could be. I have to confess that this makes no sense to me. My life is the tree and it is planted by the stream, and I definitely draw nourishment from God's word. However, I will admit that sometimes (OK, many times) I focus on the weakest parts of my tree. (I could draw the tree both as I see it and as it is, but I'm not good at drawing, so I'll only draw one.)
In our reading today, the author tells us that the Bible is a collection of the stories of our faith. Believe it or not, my father in-law actually wrote a book to that effect "The Bible: Faith's Family Album" (http://www.amazon.com/Bible-Faiths-Family-Album/dp/0827202253/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1257247636&sr=8-1)
The Bible is a collection of our faith stories. It tells us the history of the patriarchs, and how our faith developed among them in the first section of the Old Testament. It shares the emotions of the Jewish people through the Psalms, the book of Job, and Song of Solomon. In the later part of the Old Testament, it tells us of struggles with neighbors and how God sent prophets to guide the Jewish nation. In the New Testament, it tells of how God sent Jesus and the example of his life along with the Apostles. Finally, in the later part of the New Testament, the Bible tells us the story of how our church was formed, the guidance of the Epistles and then shares John's Revelation.
With all that nourishment, how can our tree be anything but strong?
As you can see, our Bible is a wonderful collection of stories... I'm looking forward to sharing these with you over the coming weeks.
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