Are 2,000 Year Old Bible Stories the Only Important Ones?

ARE YOU CAUGHT IN THE PAST?  

Or, Do You Exist in the Present?

Some of my 50 years of Prayer Diaries

Several days ago I heard a religious speaker trying to help his audience make sense of the chaotic 2020 presidential election.

He recounted the Biblical story of Jacob and how Jacob's faith was effected by the events the patriarch had experienced and how we should do the same. 

I was lost. 

I could not fathom how anything that had happened (supernatural or otherwise) to a tribal nomad living thousands of years ago in the Middle East wilderness, had anything to do with me or anyone else in the United States in 2021. 

Why do priests, pastors, and spiritual influencers spend their time telling us Bible stories about the miraculous things God did 2000-4000 years ago?  Do they think Bible events are the only things that matter...or that ever happened to people to change their lives? How are people living in a sophisticated, Internet connected society to relate to Moses? Noah? Jacob? Jeremiah? or even to Jesus living in Romanist Palestine? 

Granted some parallels can always be drawn from Old and New Testament times. And yes, there are eternal truths that can be identified for all people, in all places, at all times. But if we're honest, the culture, language, science, politics and problems are much, much different. And then there's the little fact that Jesus was God...and we never will be.  

But here's the important question:  Has nothing important happened SINCE the Bible was written that can strengthen our faith? 

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Of course there has.  

Most Christians do not have faith in God because of something that happened 3000 years ago. They have faith because of something that happened 3 days, 13 weeks, 3 months, or 30 years ago...to THEM....in THEIR lives...that THEY either experienced or to which THEY were an eye witness.

To bolster MY faith I've kept a prayer diary. I've kept it since I was a teenager. The picture above is part of my shelf of those diaries. Reading from these pages strengthens my faith tremendously, because they contain events that happened to ME and MY family, and were (in part) the consequence of MY prayer life. 

A while back I wrote a memoir that dramatically recounted hundreds of those stories. I wrote it to confirm my faith, for me, for my family (for those that were brave enough to read it). Sure, there are references to the Bible in it. It's a faith memoir. But it's all about the events that strengthened my faith "today" and not what happened thousands of years ago. 

You should do the same. Write a MEMOIR to strengthen your faith,  for YOU, for YOUR family, and for others. 

Tell us stories of what has happened in YOUR life that have bolstered your faith.  Surely, it's not the sermons or homilies you've heard. Rather it's what you have experienced.  It's something personal. Sure, what's in the Bible or in a sermon or homily may explain your experience and give you a deeper understanding. But it's what you have sensed with your own eyes, ears, what you have touched and maybe even smelled, and tasted...not to speak of your sense of balance as you've moved through the dimensions of space and time...  that has changed you and grown your faith. 

Start your story today.