A Mature Look at the Book of Genesis

I recently read through the book of Genesis. While I had heard all of the stories of the book's main characters (Adam, Eve, Cain, Abel, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, etc.), Believe it or not, I had never read through the book on my own before.

What really surprised me as I went back and read through a lot of these stories, and found out some new stories, was just how dark some of these stories really are. The story of Noah's ark isn't the same story that you are told as a kid in Sunday school. It's nothing like the happy painting hanging up on the wall that shows a big ark filled with a bunch of jolly animals, with an older bearded man with a grin on his face, and a happy rainbow. Nope. This is a story of God flooding the earth and totally wiping out almost all of his creation.

There are some stories that aren't exactly "G-rated", which makes sense as to why I had never heard them until I read them on my own. I won't go in to details, but the story of Judah and Tamar is an odd one. But why is this important? Why is this relevant? Because Jesus comes from Judah's family line, and it shows that Jesus came from messed-up people for messed-up people, to save messed-up people.

Something else that I never fully realized is how bad Jacob (or "Israel") really was. Jacob was one of the first con-artists that we see in history, a la Leonardo DiCaprio in Catch Me If You Can. He tricked his brother Esau in to giving him his birth certificate, AND THEN he steals his blessing from his father! It's very hard to find redeeming qualities in Jacob. After he gets married twice, he starts banging their servants, having children with four women in total. When he has twelve sons, he picks a favorite out of them and gives that son a beautiful technicolor coat. Jacob really is a messed-up guy.

But that messed-up guy's son is nothing like his dad. Joseph might be my favorite Biblical character that isn't named "Jesus." With Joseph, you see a Christ-like figure that is filled with mercy, patience and forgiveness. One of the problems with some churches these days is that they preach this "prosperity gospel" that says that if we follow Jesus, he will provide us with a better life and we will have no more worries and God will bless us with good health and good wealth. However, that is not the case, and Joseph is a prime example of a man filled with the Holy Spirit that suffered.

This is a guy who was sold in to slavery by his brothers. If you thought MaCaulay Culkin's family was bad in Home Alone, think about how bad Joseph had it. Joseph was "home alone" only this time his family chose to abandon him and it was no accident. Then he's doing good, he's got something going for him (a bit) as he's working for Potiphar. Potiphar likes him and Joseph enjoys working for him. And then Potiphar's gorgeous trophy wife starts flirting with Joseph and wanting him to sleep with her. Joseph has the strength to say no, because he knows how wrong it is to fool around with another man's wife. Then she takes his underwear and lies to her husband. Joseph spends years in jail, interprets dreams and one day ends up the #2 to Pharaoh. And then he ultimately forgives his brothers.

You might be going through hell right now. You might be trusting God and praying and reading your Bible every day, but you might still feel empty. Depleted. Unloved. You might feel like you can never make it out of the storms of this life. But if you look at the story of Joseph, a man so faithful, so persistent, you see that if you just keep going, keep praying, and keep following the Lord, he will provide for you. All of this pain is just temporary. One day we will be in a world where pain does not exist.

So in Genesis, you have a true underdog story in Joseph. He was your original "rags-to-riches" star (Jay-Z?). You have a scheming con-artist in Jacob. You have a horror film of the earth getting flooded. We haven't even touched on Abraham nearly sacrificing his son Isaac, nor did we touch on a man killing his brother mob-style (The Departed?) in the story of Cain and Abel. And people say that the Bible is boring.

In all seriousness, these stories are filled with mistakes and lessons. There is much to take away from the book of Genesis. But my main takeaway was how big a boss Joseph was. How much he endured, how much adversity he faced. It is such an encouragement to me when I have my bad days or weeks or months. And I hope it encourages you too!

Thanks for reading and have a blessed week!

NFC Conference Championship: Should McCarthy Be Canned?

Cheers to another great Sunday of sports viewing. There is nothing quite like sitting on the couch all day with your buddies, eating wings and pizza, and drinking Mountain Dew, while watching hours of football. While the Pats-Colts game may have been a bloodbath and was far from suspenseful, we also got a UFC fight on Fox Sports, along with one of the craziest playoff games we have had in recent memory. Let's break down the NFC Championship game.

The Seahawks, playing at home, against a nicked-up Aaron Rodgers, were favored by 7.5 points and were picked to win by the majority of NFL experts. But I looked at this game a little differently.

Sure, the Seahawks were playing at home at CenturyLink Field, one of the toughest places to play in all of sports. But are the Seahawks really as good as they were last year? This year's team lost to the Rams, and almost lost to the Raiders and the Panthers. This year's team doesn't have play-makers Golden Tate or Percy Harvin. This year's team was 27th in passing yards per game. This year's team wasn't putting up the same kind of points that it was in 2013 or in 2012.

Rodgers was dinged-up. But could he be milking this injury for all that it's worth? Could he be getting shot up with whatever pain killers he needs to feel numb for 60 minutes? Could he play like the most physically-gifted and talented quarterback in the NFL today that he is, and get the Packers off to a good start, and make Seattle have to play from behind all game?

My answer to all of those questions in the last paragraph was yes. This Seattle team still has a monster defense. They still should be favored, as they are the home team. But +7.5? That is far too generous a point spread. It should have been +3.5. Regardless of the spread, I picked the Packers for the reasons mentioned above.

And the Packers did what I expected, and more in the first half, going in to halftime with a 16-0 lead. Many were shocked. I was not. But did I feel safe about my pick? Heck no.

That 16-0 lead should have been higher. On four trips in to Seattle territory (three coming in the redzone), the Packers scored only one touchdown, settling for three field goals. As I watched those series', the thing that caught my eye was Mike McCarthy's dismal play-calling. When the world knew they were running, they ran. He did not call a single play-action pass play in the redzone. Play-actions work to perfection on the goal line, and even if they don't, they mix things up and the next time that you run the other team might be cautious of a pass play, thus allowing your team to run it in. Bad play-calling.

In the second half, there were several points you could point to as plays that cost Green Bay the game. Most notably, Ha Ha Clinton-Dix not knocking down a prayer of a pass that allowed Seattle to convert a two-point conversion, and Brandon Bostick blowing an onside kick recovery that would have ensured a Green Bay NFC title. As Al Pacino says in his famous Any Given Sunday speech, "life is just a game of inches, and so is football." This is true. But if you are going to pinpoint the problem of Sunday's game, look no further than play-caller Mike McCarthy.

This game in a lot of ways reminded me of the Baltimore-Denver match-up in the divisional round of the 2012 playoffs. Denver controlled most of the game, but in the last 5-10 minutes or so, Denver played too conservatively, sitting on the ball, and running, taking away from what their offense does best: letting Peyton Manning pass and pick apart a defense. The Ravens' beastly defense focused in on stopping the run, and while Denver was able to keep the clock ticking, they were unable to retain possession of the ball, and had to punt it away to Baltimore, giving the Ravens' a shot, leading to one of the worst plays by a safety in playoff history.

Why did Denver lose that game? The same reason Green Bay lost on Sunday: playing too conservatively and not letting your machine of a quarterback do his thing. Especially after the touchdown on the fake field goal play, when Seattle had enormous momentum with the 12th man roaring, you have to do something about that. You can't just be content with punting the ball away. But Mike McCarthy was.

I am no Packers fan. I don't watch the Packers as much as their fans do. So I am biased, because I haven't seen enough of them to have a fair opinion. But I do know that this wasn't the first time I watched his team make this mistake. And if I worked in the Packers' front office, if I'm not firing McCarthy, or taking away his play-calling duties, I'm putting him on a short leash. Because Sunday was in the league of Mike Smith-bad managing.

Hindsight is always 20-20 but realistically, the Packers really should have won on Sunday. Looking at things from the Seattle side, this game really exposed them. They can't throw the ball. Their defense, still good, isn't otherworldly. They are human and they can be beaten. Really, they are very lucky to be playing next Sunday. If they do win next Sunday, and the Seahawks are hoisting the Lombardi Trophy, and Russell Wilson, Richard Sherman, and Pete Carroll are speaking in the microphone and thanking people, they should be sure to thank Mike McCarthy for one of the worst-managed NFL games I have seen in quite a while.