On Palm Sunday we celebrate Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem; the irony being that this man who was hailed a King is executed by the very same people just a few short days later. Why? To answer that question, we have to look at another encounter that Jesus had with them in John 8

God has made some amazing promises to Abraham: family, land, nation. The question is, “Is that the only reason Abraham is following Him?”

One of the things to note is that Abraham is the only person in the Old Testament who is explicitly given the title “friend of God” (see 2 Chron. 20:7 & Isaiah 41:8). Abraham the doubter, the fearful one, the failure, becomes God’s friend. How did this happen?

In Genesis 16 we encounter a third obstacle that faces Abraham in his journey with God: his own plans and desires.

What is it that led Abraham to have such faith and trust in God? Genesis 15 provides us with the answer to that question. In this story Abraham encounters another obstacle to following God: doubt. In the face of his own circumstances, he has begun to doubt whether God can really follow through on His promises.

Out of fear and a desire for self-preservation Abraham leaves and goes to Egypt, where his fears lead him to lie at the expense of his wife and almost endanger the promise itself. Luckily for Abraham, God delivers him from the consequences of his bad decision and returns him to the land, reassuring him of His promises.

Genesis marks an absolute low point in the story so far: human (and angelic) wickedness has reached such a degree that God regrets that “he made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart”

“That’s wrong! That’s terrible! That’s not the way it is supposed to be!” Such are the words we say when we encounter pain, suffering, disease, death, disaster, and tragedy. We scroll through our newsfeeds and are bombarded daily with stories that highlight the reality of the broken world that we live in. So if God made the world to be so good, what happened?!

Every story has a beginning and it is often in our beginnings that we begin to understand the truth about ourselves and the world we live in.

Though made up of several books containing a variety of literary genres, the Bible is not a collection of random stories or pieces of literature. Rather it is one single narrative from beginning to end, with one central character: God. In its opening pages we are introduced to him and to some foundational truths which echo throughout the rest of Scripture’s pages. Specifically, in the opening lines of Scripture we learn that, before the beginning, there was God, there was love, and there was darkness. And these three things are important for us because they help us understand that all of creation ultimately finds its purpose in God and that our lives are designed for self-giving love with God.