Finished with Genesis!

While I got started a little behind, I finished Genesis on Tuesday!  I wanted to share some things that stuck out to me.

1.) Whenever I think of families in the Old Testament I assume they are huge, like over ten children.  As I was reading through this time I was impressed by how rare that really was.   Even Jacob, who is famous for all of his sons, fathered those children between FOUR women, not just one.  From the account we have Leah had the most children, and she only had seven that we know of, and Rachel only had two children.  This was particularly interesting to me because Leah and Rachel were sisters, and you would assume they had the same fertility potential, but due to their situations in life God chose to send Leah far more children than Rachel.

2.)  I have been reading some books that talk about how God's blessing often included children and how His cursing also included children.  I vaguely remembered this from previous reading, but going through a book so quickly really brought these instances to the forefront of my mind.  Not only do God's blessings mention blessings of children, but family blessings also prominently included children.  The most obvious one that comes to mind is the blessing given to Rebekah by her family before she leaves to marry Isaac:

     "Thou art our sister, be thou mother of thousands of millions, and let thy seed posess the gate of those which hate them."
                         -Genesis 24:60

Thousands of millions!  Talk about big vision!

3.)  God fulfills His promises in his own time.  This was a different revelation to me.  When God promised Abraham children, He always talked about them not being able to be numbered, like the stars of the night sky... but Abraham only ever saw Isaac.  And Isaac only had one set of twins.  Add to that Isaac and Rebekah took a long time to have children so Abraham probably never met his grandsons.  I am always so excited about the miracle of Isaac's birth that I never stopped to consider how this would look through earthly eyes to Abraham.  It makes me think that he must have such a bigger faith than we give him credit for, and God must have seen all of that when He 'counted it to him as righteousness'.  We really don't begin to see the physical outworking of this promise until Jacob's family, which is three generations removed from Abraham.  This encouraged my heart by reminding me that even if I don't see the results of God's promises in my lifetime, He is faithful and will follow through.

4.)  Some really cool prayers!  I always associate template/example prayers with only being in the New Testament, but that's just not so! Abraham's eldest servant's prayer in ch. 24 and Jacob's prayer before meeting his brother in ch 32 are just two of these beautiful prayers that can be examples for us all.  I like Jacob's especially and want to quote it for you here.

    "O Gos of my father Abraham, and God of my father Isaac, the Lord which said unto me, Return unto thy country and to thy kindred, and I will deal well with thee: I am not worthy of the least of all the mercies, and of all the truth, which thou hast shewed unto thy servant; for with my staff I passed over this Jordan; and now I am become two bands.  Deliver me, I pray thee, from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau: for I fear him, lest he will come and smite me, and the mother with the children.  And thou saidst, I will surely do thee good, and make thy seed as the sand of the sea, which cannot be numbered for multitude."
                                                                       -Genesis 32: 9-12

5.)  Pre-incarnate visitations of God/Christ.  I never realized how many times God came down in person to speak to His people!  Of course we all know he talked to Adam and Eve in the garden, but he also visited Enoch, Abraham on several occasions, Lot, Hagar, and Jacob.  I always assumed before that these were angels, but after consulting a couple of references it appears these events would better be described as theophanies, or a visible manifestation of God to humankind.  So these events were God Himself coming to visit His people! So cool!

While I did get some other things out of my whirlwind trip through Genesis, these were some of the newest things for me.  What's new in God's word for you lately?