Skipping Ahead

Have you ever read the last few pages ---or even the last few sentences--of a book first....just to see how it ends even before you begin reading it? I have...and in all honesty, I usually forget how it ends, once I get into the story. But isn't that a prime example of human nature...well, for MOST of us, at least? We want to know how it ends.

Right now, Chad and I have set ourselves to reading the Bible in a year. Chronologically, which, yes...means starting with the Old Testament. There are some Bible-in-a-Year tracks that allow you to jump around and get a little of everything throughout the week. No, we wanted to know how it happened...in the order it is thought to have happened. I want to know what came first....because with all the Bible stories I have swarming around in my head...I don't always know where they fit in the timeline with each other. So alas, here we go.

Not gonna lie...reading the Old Testament is a chore. I'm stuck in Leviticus, bemoaning the reality that I'm way behind and that I only have Numbers to look forward to once I finish. Great. Sometimes I get frustrated and lost in the legalistic and extremely repetitive details of God's commands for his tabernacle and sacrifices, and I skip ahead and read a little of the New Testament. I jump to the red letters to take in the exciting news and unimaginable revelations that Jesus brought. I was sitting the the Maundy Thursday service when it hit me that this desire/habit/temptation is a picture of ME and how I go through my life. I want to skip ahead and find out what the end looks like. I want to know where my next job is going to land me. I want to know what's going to happen in my relationships. I want to know what my new niece is going to be like when she can talk. We (and by we, I mostly mean the smart, life-long theologians) read Revalation and dig desperately to see through the cracks in the shield to catch a glimpse of what heaven and the "end" will look like.

Awhile back, my mom sent me this story about a butterfly and its cuccoon. Apparently, if you watch a butterfly break out of his cuccoon, it's a long and arduous process. It seems like we could help the little guy by just cracking away the cuccoon for him so he can get out and fly and be beautiful! Unfortunately, if you do that....the butterfly's wings will be weak and wet and he won't be able to fly....and resultingly will die. The long and tiring process is what makes the butterfly strong enough to fly. He needs that time of preparation and protection in order to become (and survive as) the beautiful creature we know.

This period---that will likely last 8 or 9 months at the rate I'm going--- of reading the Old Testament, letter by letter...verse by verse....maybe it's a long and hard to be a period of preparation for me. The Jews needed that time in the desert with God to learn and prepare themselves to receive the Promised land. They needed the thousands of years of prophets and laws in order to see and to understand what it meant when Jesus proclaimed himself the Lamb of God. Would the Jews have been able to appreciate who Jesus was and all the symbolism of what he did had the stories and laws of the Old Testament not been so ingrained in them? I, like so many Christians live in the New Testament---we bask in the Good News and would be so happy to live out our days there. It's only now---years into my journey as a follower of Christ---that I'm reading the Old Testament that I'm starting to really see and understand how good the news of Jesus was and how necessary what he did and how he did it was. It's starting to make a little more sense...things that I didn't realize I didn't understand. I think that's an amazing gift of the Holy Spirit.

So now what? Am I changed? From this day forward, will I stop looking towards the future, trying to peek around the curtain to see what comes next? Probably not....it's in my nature. But everytime I find those thoughts starting to creep in, I think about my process of reading the Old Testament....and I realize that I will need this journey of waiting and searching and living in order to be ready to accept and live out what is to come. On that note...if anyone has any idea where I'm gonig to be living come July 1st....I wouldn't mind having the surprise ruined. :-)