December 31, 2013 – 2 Chronicles 36

4 years of reading and reflections comes down to this. “Early and often the LORD, the God of their ancestors, sent his messengers to them, for he had compassion on his people and his dwelling place. But they mocked God’s messengers, despised his words, and scoffed at his prophets, until the LORD’s anger against his people blazed up beyond remedy.” If there is an overarching theme in the Bible is that God continually and infinitely gives us chances to choose Him and never gives up on us. And we repay Him with mockery, scoffing, and denials. But He keeps plugging away. I don’t know what to make of ending on going into exile. In some ways, I feel I should have ended with the Resurrection or something. In other ways, it seems very appropriate. This 4 year journey is over and I am leaving it to go somewhere knew, a change. Probably not an exile, but definitely a change.

I have enjoyed this. I know I don’t have the Bible memorized, but I do know I have a much better understanding of it. I was thinking about that when we were doing our Jesse Tree. Many of the ornaments were people we all know the stories of, David, Moses, Noah, etc. But when you talk about Samuel, Gideon, Jeremiah, I really felt that I knew these characters better than I had before, I have heard the stories, reflected on them, learned something from them. It is a great feeling to know you have a growing knowledge of the Bible. Not only that, but these reflections are still there so that I can look back on them and see where I was and where I will be. I have all the reading still broken down in their segments. What I was thinking of trying is to read the daily reading, and find my reflections for the sections that include the daily readings. I wasn’t going to publish those, more just for me to continue.

Thank you so much for those that have shared and enjoyed this journey. I have no idea how many or few there are of you, but those that have followed or read some have said they enjoyed them, and I feel I have grown a lot in my knowledge and understanding, I can only hope someone out there grew a little bit to. The new journey starts tomorrow, I hope you will all join me on that ride as well.