Published by I have always loved history. Actually that’s a lie. I have loved history since the ninth grade. My history teacher was a bit of a comic and in his class, for the first time history came to life for me. He not only explained the things that took place in the past, he acted them out and made humorous comments that made them unforgettable. My love for history became a very important part of my life and that is what led me to the Bible.
This is a book that almost everyone in the world knows about. If that is not enough to capture your interest think of this. How many wars have been fought because of Moby Dick, or Beowulf? I had to plunge into the Bible and find what it has to offer. I haven’t found it all and I have been studying it for nearly twenty five years now. I am not a crazy Christian that tells you that you’re going to burn in Hell if you don’t follow the teachings of the bible. I am an inquiring person and I have found a great many interesting items in this book and I want to share them.
Number one, I have heard so many people ask if God cares about us, why does he let such terrible things happen to good people. I spent years looking for an answer to that question and I think I may have finally found it. There is a fine line between good and evil. There is no grey area. Even a white lie to save someone hurt feelings is a lie and lies fall on the evil side of the line. That’s not to say you are a horrible person for doing this, but if you use evil even in a very small way you are not on the right side of the line and if you allow yourself to use evil you are placing yourself and those around you, in the presence of evil. To sum it up if we choose to use evil, we are letting bad things happen. God isn’t doing it.
So the simple thing to do is totally separate yourself from evil. I found two things when I did this. First it is easier said than done, and second I had no idea how much evil I use in a given day. We take things that we are not entitled to we say things that are not entirely true and we covet, and we judge. I have found that the people who judge the most tend to be the people who think they are the most righteous. That is what made me realize I am no better then anyone else. Even the looser crack head that serves no perceivable purpose is just as worthy as me. I have made many bad decisions in my life. The crack head made a very bad decision that destroyed his life, but it is no worse then when I smoked my first cigarette. It was more damaging to him and those around him, but he is still no worse than me. I think to consider myself better then the people who are in worse shape then me is wrong.
I have been trying to be a better person and I think maybe what God is looking for is that one person who will have enough endurance to leave all evil behind. The tree of knowledge gave us our first look at evil and got us cast out of paradise. Maybe if we can overcome that evil we can return to paradise.
I found another interesting thing that I guess I should have known, but I didn’t. Abraham had three sons Ishmael, Isaac and Jacob. Ishmael was his first son and the Islamic religion was born unto that. Isaac and Jacob are covered pretty well in the Bible. Now I have another book to study and that is the Qur’an. I have found that Christians and Jewish people tend to judge Islamic people and vice versa. This is something that needs to be fixed. If we are all from the same man, then we should be able to find common ground. I believe the first steps toward peace are to understand your foe. In doing this we might find that our foe is our brother. We don’t have to share their beliefs as much as understand that they hold strong to them for a good reason the same as we do.
