This year we have taken a step back to check ourselves out and identify what we like about our lives and what we don't so much. Habits, traditions, addictions, customs and other things that consume our time have all been taken note of. It has been like a fresh start for us.
This all started with my Saturdays when I would open the BIG Bible up at the Robert Carr Chapel between weddings and begin to read. It was usually opened to Psalms, Proverbs or Isaiah because it looked even and perfect up on the lectern.
Isaiah talks about God's people taking up traditions and customs in the lands they go to. He warned them, but also said that when you see that you have done this, turn from your ways and come back to God. I asked God to show me ways that I had turned from Him.
Some things that began to stir within me were, for example, my family genealogy. I recently obtained much knowledge about my dad's family. I often visit my families farm in Rhineland, Texas. This is where my great grandfathers came and settled when they left the Rhine lands of Germany. This information just raised my attention to the awareness that our country is fairly new and we all come from people who lived very different lives.
That takes me to the other thing that raised my awareness of how times throughout history, beliefs, traditions and customs took drastic turns. I have been studying the Renaissance Period with the kids. We wanted to jump to this time period because of our trip to Europe that is coming up. First, I took them quickly through early civilization, modern civilization, etc. to get us to the Renaissance. For the first time I began to realize that History is History, but that does not make it right. What I mean is that just because things happened a certain way does not mean that it was the right way. Many times people stood up and said, "hey, this isn't right," and many times they got their heads cut off. So, I want to say, "hey, we forgot something" and I hope that you will all read for yourselves Leviticus 23 and consider if you think these Holy Days are important to our God.
For the history examples, let me bring your attention to the Holocaust, the Crusades, slavery and our taking land away from the Indians. These are just a few times where things were done that were not right and yet only a few great people stood up and said, "this is wrong."
One very important time period for us to consider is the time of Constantine. Constantine was the emperor of Rome who made claim to be a Christian.(see Constantine under pages- top right) Under his rule the church took some drastic turns. It is worth your time to look up the Council of Nicaea. We find that throughout history the church and government were one. You can look back at the time that Jesus was born to see how the Roman government reigned over the land.
Leviticus 23 in MY Bible tells us of wonderful feast days and my question was, "who keeps these feast days and why do I not know anything about them?" The answer would be, the Jewish People keep these days and the reason that I don't know about them is because of our church history.
