Lord, I need to be honest. Reading 2 Samuel is not proving to be inspiring for my faith. It is actually causing me to struggle with how I view the bible. It also challenges how I think about God. That’s not a bad thing, struggling and being challenged can be a good thing. But I am having a hard time reconciling what I see and hear in You, and what I see in the old testament especially.
For the longest time I have read the bible with the assumption, ‘when in doubt, give God the benefit of the doubt’. In other words, if something seems wrong in what I read, there must be something I do not understand, and therefore if I knew all the facts, it would make more sense. The assumption is that You are good, so if something in the bible makes You look not good, the problem is in my thinking or ignorance, not in You.
I will continue to do this, Lord. But I just wanted to be honest and say that I am having doubts again. If I were not a christian and I picked up this book, I would be shocked at what I read. There is some twisted stuff in here, also stuff about You. Claims are made for God, about God, that make me cringe. Again, this is mostly from the old testament. I would much rather spend time reading the gospels, than reading the old testament.
Oh well, I press on. Somehow, You want to teach me something here. Thank You for helping me find some glimpses of good in the hard passages. And thank You for letting me be born now, in this time and place. I am not sure I could handle living in the old testament times.