I'm just musing out loud, but when I was younger and very much engaged in daily bible study, the part I had the MOST difficulty with was the old testament wherein God instructed the Israelites to kill every living inhabitant — men, women and children down to the chickens, goats and sheep. I could not accept the God of Love I knew so personally and intimately could have asked such a thing of anyone. I'm serious that it grieved me DEEPLY. I had to consciously refuse to think of those scriptures and threw myself the sop that there were some things beyond my ability to know.
I'd like to make a public apology to Him today. I get it now. I really get it. I'm sorry I had such uncharitable thoughts toward His request.
the part I had the MOST difficulty with was the old testament wherein God instructed the Israelites to kill every living inhabitant — men, women and children down to the chickens, goats and sheep. Sister, I know *precisely* what you mean, and have felt the same thing. I thought that phase of humanity, which was so reprobate and retrograde that nothing could save it, was a thing done away with via global floods and Old Testament swordsmanship. How unfortunate for us that it is still with us, squatting atop oil fields, studying how to kill in madrases, and pretending to be a government in the "Palestinian" areas.
I wish it a speedy, humiliating, and exceptionally public demise so grand that our heirs will hear stories of it and scoff at them as "too grandiose and horrible to be believed".