Thursday, August 16, 2007

A God of history, a God for today

I am no better than my ancestors (1 Kings 19:4).

When I was a teenager, I didn’t like history class. I thought the material was boring and I could never keep names and dates straight; I wondered "what do I need to know this stuff for?" But there was one exception—I didn’t mind reading historical fiction. I enjoyed stories and poems that took me back to another time and involved me in the events that were changing lives and shaping the future.

When I entered college, I found teachers who made history interesting; instead emphasizing dry facts, they spoke about trends in society, the ideas and fears that drove historical figures into making the decisions that they did. These teachers showed me that history is a record of lives lived, of personal triumphs and tragedies--and I’ve loved history ever since.

It has been said that if you ignore history, you are doomed to repeat its mistakes. Scholars hope that if we study mistakes made in the past, we won’t make those same mistakes in the future. But while I enjoy learning what history has to teach us, I’m afraid that the lessons learned often fail to make us wiser. We have over 5,000 year’s worth of written history available for our enlightenment; with all these past mistakes to caution and guide us, have we really improved how humans relate to each other? Are modern marriages stronger, today’s children better behaved? Have we come closer to eliminating poverty and human rights abuses? Are wars becoming something we’ve learned how to avoid?

We are slow to learn from our own mistakes, let alone from those made by others in the past. It’s because of the sinful nature that we are all born with, a distorted way of thinking that focuses on immediate pleasure and ignores the possibility of negative consequences. The Old Testament shows us how God’s people repeatedly did wrong, were punished by God for their sins, repented and were forgiven—yet in only a matter of years, their descendants made the same mistakes all over again. Our sinful impulses blind us to the lessons of the past. The New Testament, however, shows that God stepped into human history and made a change of lasting significance; He sent His Son Jesus to end sin’s grip on us by taking responsibility for all our mistakes and dying to free us from the punishment those sins had earned for us. When we study the past by opening the Bible, we find that we are no better than our ancestors. Nevertheless, our Lord has given us hope for a better tomorrow by getting involved—involved not only in the history of days gone by, but also involved today in your life and mine.

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