Encountering God

History Class

Example #2:

They say God works in mysterious ways. I never fully got the meaning until just recently. During the summer, my family and I were supposed to go to Korea for holiday. I was really looking forward because we hardly left the country. I started imaging of all the things I would do there, shop, eat, tour and many other things. I started packing and was all ready to go... until my dad had a gout attack. For those of you who don't know what gout is, it's basically when your leg or joint starts swelling and that part has severe pain. It was awful.

It literally just came two days before our trip and I was super bummed because we had to postpone the trip since my dad couldn't even walk. So we scheduled it for a few weeks later. A couple of days later, on the news, there were reports of MERS, a deadly disease that just had and outbreak in Korea. It was spreading to the place we were about to go. I was staring at the TV with my mouth hanging open. Firstly I was shocked of how many diseases there were, first EBOLA now MERS, and second of all, I realized that it was because of my dad's gout that prevented us from going, and if we had gone, we might have been in danger. I realized that it was God working, and that God doesn't have to send fire down from heaven or put a sign on the clouds: MERS OUTBREAK IN KOREA, but most of the time, God uses ways that are usually through common things. I'm so thankful that God had closed that door to go to Korea for me and my family. :D

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Call me weird but history has always been one of my best subjects. I just found it interesting when I relate all things that had happened to what God had promised or done. For example, the Bible states that many many years back, the Jews had disobeyed God several times, so God had left them to face the consequences-in this case it was rule under the Romans, and had scattered them all over the globe. The Jews believed that the Messiah would free them from the Romans and would gain their freedom, but when Jesus had been crucified, many of them lost hope. But even though Jesus was indeed the Messiah, most of them still didn't believe and still expected the Messiah to come and free them.

In the more recent years, around 1920, there had been a lot of tension between the Jews and the Arabs. At that period of time, Rome had lost power over that area and there was no more Israel. The Jews were scattered all over the world and the people living there were called the Arabs. So the UN in 1947 had proposed a partition to the Jews, but they had refused and some of them had grouped together and formed something like an army. They fought against the Arabs and started a civil war. Just like in Jeremiah 3:18, it says: "In those days the people of Judah and Israel will return together from exile in the north. They will return to the land I gave their ancestors as an inheritance forever."

Well and they did. They were scattered for over a thousand years. But God had compassion on them and brought them back. Like in Deuteronomy 31:6, it says: "Be strong and courageous. Do not fear or be in dread of them, for it is the LORD your God who goes with you. He will not leave you or forsake you." And after a long period of time, God still remembered his promise and kept it.

So that's why I enjoy history so much. I like to hear about things and relate them to the Bible. That might sound like really religious but that actually makes history fun for me. Another example: The Punic Wars. The Romans were at war with the people of Carthage and they always got defeated because Carthage was really advanced in their navy. The Romans had found a Carthage boat washed ashore and it was through that that they discovered how to make boats and became really powerful over sea. When the apostles were around, they mostly traveled mostly by sea to reach other areas to preach the gospel. So without the boats, they couldn't have gone across sea and would be stuck there.

One another example is: During the reign of Alexander, many things had been established and made Rome very successful. There was a common language set. Greek. So people under the rule of Rome all had to learn Greek in school so people could all understand each other and not have different languages. That helped Jesus a lot when he went around preaching. Another thing was roads-all roads leads to Rome. That helped majorly too when the apostles had to travel to places by land.