The Shellys. No, the other Shellys

Today's Symbol: A Lamb
Today's Verses: Exod 12:1-14:31
Today's Theme: Passover and the Exodus

Today's Symbol: A sack of grain
Today's Verses: Genesis 37, 39:1-50:21
Today's Theme: God's Providence

I know I've skipped a few days, and maybe I'll be able to get back to those days at some point, but I'm not going to sweat it. The first three stories of this project were, at least to me, about how no matter how people mess things up, God still cares about and loves them. The stories that I missed were about Sarah and Abraham, Abraham sacrificing Isaac, and Jacob leaving his family and tonight's story is about Jacob's son Joseph. All three of these stories are about people that listened to God, and good things happened to them.

I have always liked the story of Joseph, I remember reading about it in my children's story Bible, and then I discovered Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat, and most recently the Red Tent, which is not actually about Joseph so much as it is about his sister Dinah. Any way, after reading The Red Tent, I went back and read the story in the Bible to see how much it was the same. Not much is, but it was still interesting to see how they were similar.

Anyway, I was thinking as I re-read the story of Joseph, about how bad things happened to Joseph (his brothers practically killed him then sold him as a slave, he got accused of adultery and then spent years in prison) and he never really gave up his faith, and just kept listening to God as he talked to him through dreams, which ended up leading to good things for Joseph (getting out of prison, becoming pharos right hand man, become a leader himself.) I kind of wonder how often we are listening, or not listening, to what God has to say to us, There are times in my life that it's quite obvious when God's speaking to me, but more often than not I just don't slow down and take a moment to listen.

And now that I've written not so much about God's providence but my own ramblings, I'll also share you with a related song. Sara Grove's Hello Lord is a song that I think describes how many of us feel about listening for God.


Hello Lord, it's me your child. I have a few things on my mind. Right now I'm faced with big decisions, and I'm wondering if you have a minute. . Chorus: Right now I don't hear so well and I was wondering if you could speak up. I know that you tore the veil so I could sit with you in person and hear what you're saying, but right now, I just can't hear you. . I don't doubt your sovereignty, I doubt my own ability to hear what you're saying and to do the right thing, and I desperately want to do the right thing. . Chorus . Somewhere in the back of my mind I think you are telling me to wait, and though patience has never been mine, Lord I will wait to hear from you. . Chorus

I haven't forgotten about this! there were a couple of nights this week where i'd get home at 10 and just be so beat that i'd go right to bed. Hopefully I'll get caught up this weekend, because, I'm about to head to bed!

Todays Symbol: The Ark
Today's Verses: Gen 6:11-22,7:17-8:12, 9:8-17

I've been using the TNIV and Message versions of the Bible for this and for the first verse from Genesis I looked at the TNIV and it starts out "Now the earth was corrupt." Now, I have no idea how many years have passed between the garden of Eden and the day that Noah was asked to build the ark (I googled it...) but I know that Noah was 500 years old at the time. So we're talking probably thousands of years where humans were screwing things up. It almost seems at this point that God is just going to finally get ticked at people and wipe them all out. But there was Noah. Noah was a good man and God thought that he should build an ark, which by the way is about 4 times as long as my church about 5 as wide and a whole lot taller, which would fit Noah, his sons, and their wives, plus two of every animal. Once that was done the earth was pretty much wiped out. How's that for a loving God?

Have you noticed that every night so far, it's been the same thing? People mess up and God still wants to take care of them. And we have the promise that another flood like that will never happen again.

So, apparently I'm not on top of this blogging thing, I've got three to write tonight to get caught up! The third day of the Jesse Tree is the story of the first sin. I wasn't sure what to write about, but the good thing about taking so long to write it is that I had a chance to talk to Russ about his thoughts on the story. We all know the story right:

God created the earth and streams sprang up from the ground to provide water since no rain had been sent. The God gathered some dust and created a form of a man and blew life into him. He put this man into the garden that he created, Eden. It was filled with trees to provide beauty and food, with one tree in the middle of the garden that was not to be eaten from. God set Adam out to care for the land. He decided that man should have a companion and created the animals, which Adam named, but did not find a compainion. God took one of his ribs and formed it into a woman, Eve. Adam and Eve lived in the garden hanging out, naked and happy, enjoying each other a God, until one day...when the serpent appeared. He met Eve in the garden and convinced her to eat the fruit from the tree in the center of the garden. After eating it the humans realized they were naked and became ashamed and hid from god. God gets mad that they disobayed Him and punishes both the humans and the snake. The snake is made the lowest of the animals, and A&E are kicked out of the garden and Eve goes and gets women cursed for all times.

I was telling Russ that I wasn't sure what to write about for this day and we started talking about how God is all knowing and knows everything we will do before we do it. So if this is true, he knew even before He created Adam, that humans were going to go and mess everything up. And he still creates humans! He knew that the very first people that He created were going to go and mess it up for every one there after, but he still did it! I probably would not have. I probably would have said, "I set up this amazing world, it's perfect and I don't want anyone to mess it up. I'll bet that these two people are going to go and screw something up, so maybe I just won't make them and keep the place looking good." (And I probably have thought this about things that I've set up at work, planned out an activity then decide not to do it based on one or two children that end up in my group.) But, again, here we are a very, very, long time later, still screwing up the world, and God goes a head and let's us do it, lets us make mistakes and learn from them, and still loves us the same.

As I'm writing this, I'm also checking out a devotional for parents (http://www.jesse-trees.com/parent/parent-devotions.html) and for today it also references a few verses in Romans. The summary of these verses (because I don't really want to copy and paste huge sections of the Bible here) is there is death and judgement because of Adam's sins, but Christ's one act of righteousness saved us all. (The whole passage is Roman's 5:12-21)

Today's symbol is the apple :

Since the theme of the Jesse Tree is how God has shown his faithfulness to His people through out the Old Testament, it only makes sense to start with the creation of people. I really liked the Message translation of today's verses, Genesis 1:26-31

26-28 God spoke: "Let us make human beings in our image, make them
reflecting our nature
So they can be responsible for the fish in the sea,
the birds in the air, the cattle,
And, yes, Earth itself,
and every animal that moves on the face of Earth."
God created human beings;
he created them godlike,
Reflecting God's nature.
He created them male and female.
God blessed them:
"Prosper! Reproduce! Fill Earth! Take charge!
Be responsible for fish in the sea and birds in the air,
for every living thing that moves on the face of Earth."

29-30 Then God said, "I've given you
every sort of seed-bearing plant on Earth
And every kind of fruit-bearing tree,
given them to you for food.
To all animals and all birds,
everything that moves and breathes,
I give whatever grows out of the ground for food."
And there it was.

31 God looked over everything he had made;
it was so good, so very good!
It was evening, it was morning—
Day Six.

Two things really strike me in this translation, first that we're responsible for everything on this Earth. Yeah, we all know this, right? But to see it put like that:
"God blessed them:"Prosper! Reproduce! Fill Earth! Take charge!
Be responsible for fish in the sea and birds in the air,
for every living thing that moves on the face of Earth."

We have been blessed to take care of the Earth and everything on it, and I know that most of us do and if we could all get one person who doesn't to do one thing, it would make a big difference, all the little things add it. One of the things that has made me really happy over the past few school years is that my school is making an effort to use less paper by laminating daily forms and using the same form everyday, we've also condensed these forms to make less of them. I can't say for sure, but I can imagine that these two things have cut back on a bit of paper consumption.

The second thing that stood out to me was the last verse:
31 God looked over everything he had made;
it was so good, so very good!
It was evening, it was morning—
Day Six.

We are so very good in God's eyes! Even when we're screwing up (which of course hadn't happened at this point and is actually tomorrow's topic) but He doesn't care! He's willing to forgive and forgive and forgive, as many times as we need it, because we're good, so very good to Him. There's a song by David Crowder (and I'm sure many other's but I happen to have the DC version) Everything Glorious and the chorus is "You make everything glorious, and I am yours." Sometimes it's hard for me to believe that I'm right up there with the Grand Canyon or a beach sunset, or what ever people find glorious.

So they symbol for day two of The Jesse Tree is the dove, not the symbol that I would imagine, but Russ's input is:
"The creation as God intended is to live in peace, so the dove as the symbol of creation as God originally intended." (And if I misquoted him, I'm sure he'll reply!)

So, I love Advent and Christmas. I've been secretly listening to Christmas music since October, and not so secretly for the past few weeks. I wanted to do an advent calendar but all the ones that we've seen were too commercial, or had santa all over them. While I love giving (and yes, getting) gifts, I hate that Christmas has become all about waiting...for Santa to come. Yes, we're waiting, but we're waiting for Jesus and waiting to celebrate his birth, not some fat old man with a sack of gifts. Then I remembered having dinner at the Woodworth's house a few years ago and and they had a Jesse Tree, which I thought at the time was pretty neat, and then kinda forgot about until the other day. I had wanted to try to make one to do a little bit with my niece, but seeing as it was Wednesday when I thought of it and she was coming Wednesday night, it wasn't going to happen!
I thought though, that I would still like to do one, but haven't found a pattern for one, so I would do a virtual Jesse Tree instead.

The idea of the Jesse Tree comes from Isaiah 11:1-10:
The Branch From Jesse
A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse;
from his roots a Branch will bear fruit.
The Spirit of the LORD will rest on him—
the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding,
the Spirit of counsel and of might,
the Spirit of the knowledge and fear of the LORD—
and he will delight in the fear of the LORD.
He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes,
or decide by what he hears with his ears;
but with righteousness he will judge the needy,
with justice he will give decisions for the poor of the earth.
He will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth;
with the breath of his lips he will slay the wicked.
Righteousness will be his belt
and faithfulness the sash around his waist.
The wolf will live with the lamb,
the leopard will lie down with the goat,
the calf and the lion and the yearling together;
and a little child will lead them.
The cow will feed with the bear,
their young will lie down together,
and the lion will eat straw like the ox.
The infant will play near the cobra’s den,
the young child will put its hand into the viper’s nest.
They will neither harm nor destroy
on all my holy mountain,
for the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the LORD
as the waters cover the sea
In that day the Root of Jesse will stand as a banner for the peoples; the nations will rally to him, and his resting place will be glorious.

The branch out of the stump is a symbol of hope out of discouragement. It's also seen as a way to connect the stories of the Old Testament to the story of Christmas,showing God's faithfulness throughout the years while waiting for the Messiah to come.

The first symbol is the tree: