Cycles

Welcome back to “We READS the Bible.”  I was so glad to get out of Job.  The journey between chapter 1 and 42 was intense.  We were deep down in there.  We finally emerged victorious, but we came through with some scars.  We have evidence that we survived a mighty battle.  So glad to be on the other side.  And then, we traveled back to Genesis.

Of all the books in the Bible, I know for sure that I’ve read this one.  Unfortunately, I must have read it with one eye open because so many things are sticking out to me as a I read.  Part of my dilemma is probably similar to yours.  My eyes glaze over when I got to genealogy.  You know the family trees.  She gave birth to Zimran, Jokshan, Medan, Midian, Ishbak, and Shuah….that’s the kind of family tree that I’m speaking of.  I usually read the assigned chapters out loud.  It helps me maintain focus.

While reading Genesis 26 out loud, I found myself growing concerned.  I was experiencing déjà vu.  To be fair, I was reading my chapters late in the evening.  I had let the entire day go by without focusing on the day’s reading.  Ya’ll know that if it’s late, I get sleepy.  So I thought that maybe I was dozing off and talking in my sleep.  I do that too.  Anyway, the point is that I wasn’t going crazy.  I was experiencing déjà vu, because the scriptures that I was reading had already happened earlier in Genesis.

In Genesis 26, Isaac is facing a famine.  Isaac, for those who don’t know, is the son of Abraham and Sarah.  Yes, I’m talking about the Isaac that was going to be sacrificed on the mountain, but God provided a ram in the bush.  That Isaac.  He now has a family of his own.  When famine occurs, he moves to a different region to provide for his family.  Can’t blame him.  When he arrives there, the men in the land ask about his wife, Rebekah.  The Bible says that Rebekah is beautiful, so it’s understandable that the men would ask about her.  They want to know if she’s fair game.  There is a new hot chick in town.  And here enters my déjà vu.  Isaac says that Rebekah is his sister.

Earlier in Genesis, Abraham had experienced famine as well.  He too had moved his family to a new land.  The men there were intrigued by Sarah’s beauty and asked about her status.  Was she single, married, divorced, or it’s complicated?  And Abraham replied that Sarah was his sister.  Not once, but on two separate occasions.

So, what’s so profound about this to me?  The power and weight that cycles have on our lives.  Isaac was not even born when Abraham told those lies, but the thought process had weight that carried over into his generation.  Did Abraham sit and tell Isaac about those situations to help him steer clear, or did Isaac just instinctively go there?  I’m not sure.  I do know that the Bible says that Isaac told the lie because Rebekah was so fine that he feared the men would kill him if they knew she was his wife.  She must have been some kind of beautiful.

This made me think of the cycles that have gone through my family from generation to generation.  I’m the first one not to be a teen mother but other cycles have reared their heads.  Sitting and talking with my grandmother about her faith journey opened my eyes.  So, many of the things that she experienced have happened to me.  Maybe not to the same degree, but they exist.  Talking to my mother has had the same affect on me as well.  Cycles.

The great news is that we don’t have to keep cycles going.  We have to be intentional about living the best we can.  Ya’ll reading this Bible has been taking me down through there.  It’s necessary medicine, but it doesn’t always taste good going down.  I know the more that I dive in, the better I become.  We got this!  #wepreach