Altars.

I’m joining a few friends and walking through a year-long Bible reading commitment for 2018. We’re just a couple weeks in but I love the discussions and discoveries we’ve had of late.

Take the book of Genesis, for example. I’m not sure what drama you subscribe to on television, but hear me: it pales in comparison to the drama you’ll find in the Old Testament. Really. There’s some seriously crazy dysfunction in those pages. Yet, sift and dig and you also find some radically beautiful and transformational moments showcasing God’s provision and guiding. For instance the subject of “altars.” Look within the first 24 chapters of Genesis and you’ll find at least three altars that were built. Noah built an altar to the Lord commemorating God carrying him and his family through the flood (Genesis 8:20). Abram built an altar to the Lord to give thanks to God providing a promised land to him (Genesis 12:8) and built another for the sacrifice – and ultimate saving – of his son, Isaac. And that was just three instances. Look through scripture and you continually see altars built for the sole purpose of commemorating, recognizing and remembering the moments that God met with His people.

I wonder… How many times did Noah or Abraham second-guess, question, or wander in the open fields questioning God’s calling, God’s leading or God’s presence in their lives only to stumble across an altar they had built that reminded them of God’s promise, God’s provision and God’s leading found in their lives and circumstances?

With as many altars as I am seeing being built in Genesis, I’m going to go out on a limb and say that I bet it happened a lot. And each time it did, I believe it was a needed and poignant reminder that God’s still working, still moving, still leading.

Question. Are we building altars upon the moments of God’s moving in our lives to remind us at some later point that God is still moving, still leading and still directing? Perhaps it’s a note in a journal to yourself of where God is moving or what God is saying within your life. Maybe it’s writing a notation in your Bible where you sense God is speaking something of meaning and significance over a circumstance happening in your life. Whatever that “altar” represents to you, let me encourage you.

Build it. Claim it. Name it.

The reasoning is quite simple. Your future self might need the reminder.