Big Huge God

Happy Easter!

TEN WEEKS TILL WE'RE HOME!

I know I say this every week, but I can't believe how fast time is going by! Ten weeks is tiny! And it includes a week of driving! Only nine short weeks until SBS is over. Only 19 (mostly small) books left to study. Last week we spent two days whipping through the book of Job, followed by four days meandering through Amos. Those of you who know your Bible-book-lengths just scrunched up your faces. It's ok, I did too. I happen to love Job to pieces so I was a little sad to spend so little time on it. However, our seasoned staff aren't insane! Since Job is so very repetitive, we did big-picture study of it. Amos, on the other hand, is the first prophet that we've studied and was thus our introduction to the slight differences we'll be seeing in our assignments from now on.

As a whole, the week was one big reminder that we serve an awesome God. Awesome, huge, holy, sovereign, just, loving, merciful. Need I go on? When we first started the Old Testament I wrote about how people often think that the God of the Old Testament is mean and scary and the God of the New Testament is soft and cuddly or something equally as appalling. I've always disagreed with that notion (in case you couldn't tell) and books like Job and Amos really cement it for me. Well, actually every single Old Testament book has reminded me how untrue that idea is. Oh wait, and the New Testament. Sorry, but Jesus isn't soft and cuddly. He might have made God's love a little easier to understand, but he sure wasn't a pushover.

I digress. I find the Old Testament just astounding. Someone please read 2 Kings 17 and then read Amos and tell me that God's heart didn't ache for his people. Tell me he's a ruthless, heartless, Zeus-like being who delights in terrorizing humans. You won't find that god in the Bible. My God laid the earth's foundations and commands the morning. He gives wisdom and understanding. Encountering him leaves us no choice but to step back and admit, "I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know...I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you; therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes" (Job 42:3-6).

BUT at the same time my God is the God who begs his people to return to him so he doesn't have to see them destroyed. He sends prophets to warn his people, even though he's given them warnings enough and they haven't returned (Amos 4:6-11). He assures them over and over again, "If my people who are called by my name humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and forgive their sins and heal their land" (2 Chronicles 7:14). How anyone can read the Old Testament and find fault with God is beyond me. We as humans are so obviously the ones with the problem.

Perhaps the most encouraging thing about this whole process is the way we have the opportunity to live out what we learn in the classroom. Three weeks ago our class of about fifty students added up how much money was needed for everyone to finish SBS. Many of us have been able to cover our school costs, but many are still in danger if being sent home if they can't pay. Three weeks ago the total amount still needed was over $17,000. Today it's down to just over $10,000. Talk about trusting that God is bigger than what we can see! Every penny that's come in has been a miracle. It's money that our classmates didn't have and had no way of earning. God speaks and nudges and guides people all over the world, and in three weeks $7,000 has come in. God is big.