Mary-LUE has a Meme called "Sleeping with Bread". I've struggled with it for two reasons: 1) It's on Monday. 2) I couldn't understand part of it (the real reason).

You can read the details but the short of it is that it's an opportunity to review what brought you blessing and what caused you pain or struggle during the week before. I couldn't understand why one would want to review what had been so hard about the prior week.

Finally, (things have to live in my head a while before they make good connections) I got it! If we don't take time to review what is causing us grief, we don't know how to adjust our lives accordingly. We end up fighting what we should be accepting and (more often, I think) we end up accepting what we should be fighting ... well at least making new arrangements for.

So, as some of you know, I am reading the Bible through in 90 days with a group that I hooked up with on the Internet.

Today I'm going to share some of the blessings of accomplishing this marathon. And then I'm going to tell you about some of the down sides.

Some of the edifications and blessings

Well ... reading the Bible in a glob has been a bit humorous. I mean that in the most respectful way. But really have you ever read the book of Genesis in four days? It get's pretty funny in some parts when you're just running your eyes over the terrain and you keep seeing these same issues popping up over and over ... just like ... you know ... modern day today.

Mostly, I ended up being amazed by God's patience and also ...A question came up and I began to ponder something about those ever lying patriarchs.

One good thing about reading the whole thing in one clump is that when a meandering question pops into my head, I have a fighting chance of remembering something that I read in the previous chapters that will provide me with a fairly instantaneous "OH yeah!" moment ... or the question will linger in my head long enough for the next few chapters to provide an "OH I See" moment.

For example ... Genesis 6:3

Then the Lord said, "My Spirit will not contend with man forever, for he is mortal, his days will be a hundred and twenty years.

I don't know if parents today have these moments but when I was raising my children, I'd have moments when I'd say to myself, "Wait! Why am I putting up with this? I am the parent. They are merely children!" And to them I would say, "ENOugh ... go to bed. NOW." It just sort of felt like, on a much grander scale, God had one of those moments.

But as I pondered this bit of humor through the day, I began to wonder, did I miss something? I didn't remember a lot of contending going on ... 2 chapters to make earth and man ... 1 chapter for man to mess it up ... 8 more verses and there's a murder ... then there's a whole bunch of really old men begetting a whole bunch of kids. I didn't remember a whole bunch of tedious contending.

Two bits of verses came together in my mind. One was Gen 4:6-7

The the Lord said to Cain, "Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? If you will do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you but you must master it.

The other was Gen. 6:5:

The Lord saw how great man's wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart were only evil all the time.

So evidently God kept waiting for them to "do what is right" and they only had "only evil all the time" in the thoughts of their heart ... which says to me these were those deep seated thoughts of the determined sort.

Can you imagine waiting 950 years for the kids around you to get it right? Ugg ... I didn't have enough patience to wait 95 minutes. I'm not sure I give my man 95 seconds most of the time.

And then there's this. The bloom'n patriarchs that were suppose to be the chosen leaders, etc -- They were a lying bunch of scalawags! All The Time! So the question was brought up in our reading group: "Since they lied all the time, why were they so materially blessed ... often as a direct result of a lie."

Something kept pulling at the back edges of my mind ... I kept thinking "I know I've heard or read a lesson on this." Well, the exact lesson and the teacher never came to mind. A group photo type image came to mind of several excellent teachers but one lesson thread tied to one specific teacher never did. Eventually, all their lessons combined together to helped me see things fresh again for myself.

You know in Gen 27 when Jacob plays out his treachery of tricking his dad and stealing his brother's blessing ... all according to Rebekah's plan? Well things get kind of out of control and Esau starts planning to kill Jacob. In verses 42-45 Rebekah tells Jacob to get his body outta site and run to her brother because "Why should I lose both of you in one day?" In that sentence, I started to feel sorry for these people.

If you go backwards and forward from that point, you will see it ... the grief that their lies caused to themselves and each other ... it is so intense and so multi-layered ... and it just seems to snowball with each generation. So, while they had material blessings, they had no peace ... not even in the inner-circle of their families.

At the same time ... several times you will find that their belief in God's promises and their obedience usually was fairly on target when God came and dealt with them on a personal basis â€" And He was pleased with this. I suspect that had something to do with their material blessings. But also God is no slacker. He was busy getting ready to physically provide for a whole bunch of people.

Ok one more thing that was a blessing to me. I noticed this: God gave each of the patriarchs more than the 120 years and each one got to see some sort of easing of the knots that their lies had caused. I think God was gracious in this ... that they got to see some good still come from their lives and their children's lives ... maybe because, as best I recall, they came to places of deep grief over the lies they had told. You really should read the whole story in just a few days. It's better than any novel written today.

To me their blessing of God's leniency in allowing them enough days to see something good restored to their families matches with one of the threads I know runs through the Bible. David to God ... Psalms 51:16-17

"You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it;
you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings.

The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart,
O God, you will not despise.

The down side to reading so much so quickly?

I don't get to diddle around with it and question God at every turn. So much of it I just have to let go of (at least for the moment) and say "Alright it is as Dr. Criswell always said: 'It is the right of deity to not explain every last detail (to us mere mortals). We simply are not allowed to know everything right now.'"

Also, I'm realizing that I need to read the Bible through in about 90 days 4 or 5 times before I ever consider taking time to dissect the scripture. I mean I feel like this dissection thing ... of scattering bits and pieces of the Bible across years and churches and teachers ... is exactly the reason I keep finding myself going "HEY wait! What do you mean Isaac didn't croak right away after he gave the blessing to Jacob ... he was suppose to be dieing" ... yet ... he didn't ... not until Jacob came back and patched things up with Esau, and after Jacob diddled around in the desert ... oh yeah and then he got around to going back and patching things up with his dad, Isaac ... YEAH ... and then the ancient old Isaac still hung in there a few more years.

... And did you know that Joseph didn't just give the grain to the Egyptians during the famine? Nope ... he charged them money ... and then ... when their money was gone ... he took their land for the Pharaoh ... and then when their land was gone ... they all became servants to the Pharaoh ... Now Tell ME ... with a record like that ... how does a Pharaoh then rise up a few generations later that didn't know of Joseph?! Oh yeah ... it happened ... but that's next week ... and there's something really funny to tell you next week.