I love so many of the stories throughout scripture. There are some amazing heroes of the faith and their stories are just as incredible. However, one of the other things I love about scripture is the raw honesty and the fact that the good is presented along with the bad. It would have been easy for the early church to “clean up” the original stories to make them show God’s people in a much better light. However, that isn’t what happened. The dirty laundry is in there right along with everything else. I truly believe that the Word of God is divinely inspired by the Holy Spirit and that all of that junk was left in there for a reason.

In my opinion, one of the biggest problems that the church (meaning all Christians as a whole, myself included) has is that we try to hide the not so appealing parts of our humanity. We so often put on a facade of perfection that attempts to hide our flaws. The sad part about it is, those flaws will eventually come out. Instead, we need to be able to admit our shortcomings. Sometimes those shortcomings can become our biggest witness. On the flip side though, when we hide our flaws and pretend everything is perfect, that can often hurt our witness more than anything else.

If you want to see a flawed side of humanity, read a few chapters through Judges. Starting in Judges 2 we see that after Joshua died, entire generations of God’s people grew up without knowing anything about the God who rescued them from the Egyptians. It also says that the people turned to false gods and did all sorts of evil. I see a lot of parallels with how our world is today. I think that is part of why those stories are in scripture. We aren’t supposed to make the same mistake the Israelites made. Maybe, if we are startled by a man chopping up his concubine (Judge 19) or by one of the judges ordained by God being deceived by an evil woman and who was also known to seek out the company of prostitutes (Judges 16), we might possibly seek a closer relationship with the one true God.

I pray for our world right now. There is so much evil and suffering. Too many people are ok with having nothing to do with God just like the Israelites were. My generation is a highly unchurched generation. We are reaping the harvest of that now in the acceptance of abortion, the celebration of sin, and the astounding number of single parent homes. If there was ever a time that we needed a divine interaction with God, it is today.

My challenge to us: let’s be the change that this world needs. Let’s not just accept the evils of this world but instead diligently learn to follow the will of God. Let us not put on a facade with others, but instead be willing to get in the trenches with others. Let us turn this nation back to God.