This is my eight part blog post, hope you enjoy it and have enough patience to go through the whole thing.

Part 1

Conflict/Doubt-The reason Israel is named Israel is because Israel means struggles with God and they have a history of doing that. Jacob got his named changed to Israel after he fought with God for a whole night and his name got changed to Israel. The symbol that I have I think is a good demonstration for struggling. I learned in this lesson that it is ok to struggle and doubt but we have to trust in him so that we may be with him for eternity. Something that I have doubt with is fearing what will happen in the future. For example maybe fearing that someone close to me is going to die and what would happen if they did. I think everyone has conflicts and doubts and it is ok to have those but through everything we have to trust in God and believe he will do the right thing for me and for others.

Covenant-In the bible there were 2 types of covenants. Conditional and unconditional. Conditional is when both groups have to obey what the covenant says for example when God made the ten commandments that was a conditional covenant because God and the people followed up their part. An unconditional covenant is when only one group has to obey the covenant. An example of that is the great flood that destroyed the world. It is unconditional because only God has to follow up on what he said so I guess in theory we could still destroy the earth by a giant flood but I don’t know where we would get all the water. I think a modern day covenant would be something like all the amendments of the U.S because the government has to follow them and the people obey the rules. My 

Call-God called 3 very important patriarchs to trust and follow Him. There names were Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. God called them to blindly leave everything they had to follow Him to different unknown lands. I think God’s call is very important to our lives. Some of the ways he may call us is adoption, being a missionary or to do something in general. To obey God’s calling we must have trust in him. Many times God calls us to do something in the spur of a moment and we either do it or we don’t do it and then there’s no going back. I know for sure that has happened to me a few times. God’s calling is not always clear He always makes that clear if we spend time with Him. We either are busy and we don’t listen to him or we are available and listening for what he wants us to do. My visual is a guy who is having trouble to hear.

Slavery/Salvation-Joseph was sold into slavery by his brothers. He was a servant in Egypt and got sent to jail from a scandal that he did not do. He had many difficult trials but in the end it came back for good when he was second in command and he let his family stay in Egypt when there was a great famine and he saved many peoples lives. That is a great example of how God can turn bad into good. Josephs brothers intended to harm him but God made it for good. God is always faithful and present even today. My visual is a path leading to the cross. I think that is a great example of the burden of slavery to salvation.

Sinai Law-God made the ten commandments for our own good. They show us how to live and live holy in God’s eyes. These laws cover every area of our lives and they are part of a covenant between us and God. Golden Calves are meant to distract us from being with God. My visual is a golden calf on fire. I think this is a good visual because that shows how we should destroy our “golden calves” and put God first. I learned in this lesson that the Israelites got distracted from God and couldn’t keep their part in their covenant.

Sent to promised Land-In the bible the Israelites were sent by God to wander in the desert. They had to trust God for their daily food water and supplies. The Israelites had many trials and had many memories from wandering. Many Israelites died during the journey. This connects to me to. If the Israelites many times got blessings if they obeyed and consequences if they disobeyed and I get the same sometimes. My visual is the desert. Imagine if you had to wander in a desert for forty years with no way of knowing where you are going. I would get sick of the same desert and the same food every day to.

Salute to a King-The Israelites were going through the cycle of Judges for a very long time.  It was when people sinned, God allowed consequences, people cry out to God for help and people repent and that repeated many times. But finally the Israelites got sick of it and they just wanted a king. I think God realized that when he sent judges it only helped for a while and then they would turn back to their wicked ways so he just gave the Israelites a king named Saul. Now Saul was strong and handsome but that wasnt what the Israelites wanted. They wanted someone who was born into royalty not from the least of the tribes. My visual is of a girl that is dizzy. I think that is a good example because you would think you would get tired from doing the same thing over and over again but it took the Israelites a long time to figure that out. 

Slide to Destruction-In the later years of the kings of Israel and Judah those separate countries were divided. Israel did not have one good king and Judah had 2 good kings and the rest were bad. Every king after the other was worse than the one before. Consequences came to the Israelites for worshipping idles and many of them ended up in babylonian exile. God sent prophets to warn the people of Israel but they did not listen and had to suffer the consequences. When they did not listen God let other nations punish them severely. I can relate that to the U.S. when for example we have many bad leaders and we turn away from God and we end up with consequences. The visual I picked is a sign by the mountains that says rock slide area. Just like rocks slide to destruct things that are passing by we can fall to destruction if we turn away from God.