Endings and New Beginnings

So I end right at the beginning. Genesis. The Almighty Origin. God. He is the reason why I started this journey to Cambodia. The journey, really, to experience an intimate relationship with Him. If there's one thing I must proclaim all the more, live in tune with all the more and continue to comprehend more and more is this: 


God loves me. For that matter, God loves YOU. He brought me to Cambodia (this sounds bad but hear me out) not to love or serve or care for people. He brought me to Cambodia so that He could love and serve and care for me. Because as it says in 1 John 4:10 - This is love: not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 


Get this. God is love. Without God, I do not know how to love, I receive no love. And, boy, have I tried! To get love from friends and family, to attain affection and acceptance from peers. For a while, it may feel so good, but often my expectations exceed my attainment. And to love. Oh, to love so hard and so much but run dry and empty. Because I have nothing to give. I have missed the point. God is love. Love that far surpasses human love in both quantity and quality. 


And there is only one way to love. One way to God. Jesus. God Himself who came down to earth. Fully God. Fully man. Fully sacrificial. He bridged the gap between God and man. A gap that came into because of my blinding pride, my seething anger, my malicious envy, my depraved imperfections, my uncontrollable sin. I see it in wars fought, political oppression, drug abuse, sex trafficking, suicide, depression, death. It is obvious we need a Savior. Jesus is that Savior. My sin fully paid for on the cross where He died the death I deserved. Fully forgiven. Fully redeemed. Fully accomplished. So that I may have life. Life to its fullest. 


This was the reason I left everything to go to a country halfway across the world from me. Because everyone should know this love, this truth, this good news. Instead, that great love was taught to me in greater depths. So that I may proclaim it clearer and louder - first to myself and then to the world around me. 


As you well may know, I am no longer in Cambodia even though the adventures continue (trust me, they do!). The great experience of Cambodia has moulded and changed my life. 

It is here I end off. At the beginning of a whole new adventure! 

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Genesis

Back to basics. God calls me to just be still and know that He is God. To go back to basics - as a wide-eyed child looking to Him for everything. All things. Not a blind faith but a faith with eyes wide open seeing everything said in scripture, mulling over each word and chewing on each sentence. 

So I start right at the beginning of the bible. Genesis. Greek meaning original or generation. Generation. After generation after generation. That means one story that is related and continues. A theme that is passed down the entire bible by blood. I've read Genesis many times, hear the stories on countless occasions but something about the themes seem so captivating. It's my story. 

Today I continue from where I left off - read about creation, the creation of mankind, each specification planned out and fashioned intentionally by a powerfully intelligent yet furiously compassionate Creator. The place of man and the place of woman in perfect balance, a perfect complement. And then the fall. The infamous telling of the serpent that taunts Eve and then Adam into partaking of the forbidden fruit. Then comes an awakening of consciousness - but not to a delighted enlightenment but an awareness of mankind's humanity, humility and depravity. We, human-kind, are not a pretty sight when we see ourselves beyond the trappings of pretty adornment. Naked. Ugly. 

Dare I say a curse comes upon us? As I read, I don't know if it's a curse anymore. The more I read, the more I realize. It's not a punishment but what seems to be a declaration of our state of helplessness. And cryptically embedded between the sadness and compassion of God's tone therein lies the great hope of redemption. Blink and you'll miss it. 

Eve. Meaning mother of all living. As if he knew, Adam called the woman Eve because one day, life would come through the birth of a child. Life itself. Eve's offspring shall crush the serpent's head, was the serpent's curse. Indeed, what brought mankind death will be overcome by a child born to a woman (not man and woman). Jesus.  Immanuel. God with us. 

After the sorrowful declaration, comes gracious provision. When Adam and Eve noticed they were naked, they put fig leaves together. And I hardly notice this before and thanks to Matthew Henry's great insight I now do: but, now, God supplies the couple with clothes made of fur and skins. God sees the folly of our frail and temporal trappings and provides beyond despite our active rebellion against His wishes. What grace. 

I don't know why but I start crying. Sobbing. Wow. I am not sad at the fall of man. I can't explain it but I'm blown away because I see Jesus (as John Piper says). Right from the beginning, God unfolds His plan - it's beautiful, it's perfect, it's magnificent. And I'm in the thick of it. No other book I've ever laid eyes on is so complex and yet so succinct and intricately connected. 

It's not even chapter 5 and God's amazing grace is bowling me over. This a big clincher: God's grace is amazing not just because of it's magnitude but because of its complex precision in every facet of human history. 

If you've never read the bible, do it. If you're skeptical, test it. I assure you, there's nothing like it.