Looking at the world today, it’s pretty easy to grow cynical.  I am not typically a person who has trouble seeing the good, but something about the past couple of years has worn on me, and I don’t like it one bit.  My new goal is to stop looking at the negative and, even more importantly, to stop talking about the negative.  There is beauty everywhere and there is good everywhere, and my soul has got to line up with God’s so I can see it too.  Because, you see, He sees so much differently than we do.

Genesis 18:21 (GWT)–I must go down and see whether these complaints are true.  If not, I will know it.

I am so glad God doesn’t just listen, He acts.  He checks out the facts.  He never, ever moves without being absolutely certain in His just self that this is the action He wants to take.

Unlike us.  How often do we jump just because we heard something?  Judge simply because someone told us it was this way or that way?  We don’t check out the facts, don’t look past appearances, don’t dig any deeper than what the news on the TV or the gossip down the street tells us.  We make our judgment, we take our action… and often we are wrong.

See, God didn’t have to go down to Sodom and Gomorrah to know what was going on.  He already knew.  I wonder if part of the point here wasn’t His way of saying to us, “Hey, make sure you know for yourself, that you’ve seen with your own eyes before you form an opinion about anything, good or bad.”

Now there’s a lesson I need to learn.  How about you?

Care to share the verses from Genesis 18 that touched you the most?  Or is there a lesson you need to learn?

-JB