Faith. Unchained.

A series

For this past week, I have been thinking every day – worrying more like – about where I am going to take my blog.

I mean, I had a plan. I think last week a lot of us had a plan, until we didn’t.

Because #coronavirus.

And the last thing I want to do is seem as though I’m not attending to the optics of a situation which is affecting the world over and which has now been labeled by the World Health Organization as a pandemic.

I mean, I can’t just blindly continue discussing Ancient Egypt and not acknowledging what is happening in the world around us. Entire countries are on lockdown. I don’t want to ignore that.

So, I’ve thought and prayed hard for the last week, and what I’ve come to realize is that the plan I had in mind can work – with some adjustments.

My plan had been to discuss the origins of the Jewish faith by exploring the lives of the patriarchs. This would have been a “sequel”, in a way, to my series on Ancient Egyptian religion. I wanted to be sure to have a series on the the history of the Jewish faith as well.

But, starting a series on faith without acknowledging that we are living in a time when faith, all of a sudden, seems alternately like a very important and very challenging concept, felt wrong.

So, I’ve tweaked my plan a little. I’ll start with the patriarchs, while providing historical context, and then move into other Biblical personages of notable faith. But all of it will circle back around to the idea of:

Faith in God in difficult times – when, dare I say it, it doesn’t seem to make sense.

Why does faith matter? Why should we bother? Especially when it seems everything could be in the process of collapsing around us. In exploring the lives of these individuals, I hope to be able to show the Bible’s answers to these questions.

That, I think, is very relevant to what is happening right now.

I hope you’ll join me next week.

With love and prayer,

Elizabeth