Descriptors

So, by way of update (if you have been following the blog), I am going strong on day 114 of reading chronologically through the Bible. It is actually a very cool way to do it because not only do I get the stories in order as they occurred (as much as possible), but YouVersion has this little box on one side of my page that keeps track of my progress. Today I am officially 31% done with reading the Bible through in a year. Being a big numbers girl, seeing that graph move, knowing that someone is keeping track of my progress gives me the accountability I need to keep going every day.

I have officially moved into the section of the Bible that is the "not so mind gripping" - the LISTS! Yesterday, in 1 Chronicles 1 & 2, I read the lists of people who had these sons, who had these sons, who had these sons and every once in a while a daughter was thrown in the mix (that is a whole separate blog post), etc. When reading through these lists, I noticed something. Occasionally, I would come across a name and there would be a descriptor there like: 

The sons of Ham: Cush, Egypt, Put, and Canaan. The sons of Cush: Seba, Havilah, Sabta, Raama, and Sabteca. The sons of Raamah: Sheba and Dedan. Cush fathered Nimrod. He was the first on earth to be a mighty man. A few more verses down it describes The son of Carmi: Achan, the troubler of Israel... 

In reading 2 chapters, I came across a few more of these descriptors and it made me wonder "why did these particular people deserve the extra line in scripture?" Now, I am not a seminary grad and so I am sure this is probably not the correct answer to this question, but in my head, what makes sense is that they did something that made them stand out and was noteworthy. Some good, some not so good.

Then in today's reading I saw this in Psalm 87:6a The Lord records as he registers the peoples.

Humm... what is He recording about me? Daunting question! What is God recording about how I am living my life? What descriptors would I find behind my name in His record?

If you follow me on Facebook, you may have stumbled across a bit of a heated debate in one of my comment threads about social injustice. ( I so love stirring the pot!) At one point, commentators said something about it being all about "us and what we know" and  "turning into a "who" is more prideful than the other." The funny thing is that I know all of these people and would not consider any of them prideful or self centered (and I certainly know of enough people who ARE to adequately compare!) I guess if anyone speaks from experience or tells others what they know or have done it can come off as prideful or self serving to some. We all get labeled with something by someone, even ourselves. 

We use descriptors to tell people who we are in our profiles, people use descriptors to introduce us to someone new, God uses descriptors when He records things about me in His record book. The latter are really the only ones I care about. I just really pray that of all the things God records about my life, the good outweighs the bad, the action overshadows the apathy, the love outshines the hate, the passion overtakes the indifference. I won't always get it right - I just want to be moving in the right direction.

What will he record about you today?