Ham

Ham as a son of Noah. As I read about Ham and seeing the nakedness of his father, I gave some thought to this. Ham exposed what he saw and told it to others. His other brothers honored their father and took a covering and walked backwards into the tent to cover their father. Noah in realizing what had happened cursed Canaan the son of Ham. As this was explained, Canaan had a lot against him in life because he did not have a good father.  Ham chose not to cover his father and to expose what he saw. The original language indicates delight and not honor. I guess I thought a lot about the part with Ham and Canaan because I too had a dysfunctional father. As I read the book Growing up Holy and Wholly, I realized more about the dysfunction I was raised in. I had a choice and I could not follow in my fathers footsteps in areas that were not good. I had some things to overcome. Our parents are the best example we have to follow, we just have to learn to follow the good and change the bad or do the opposite when it comes to the bad. Ham should have honored his father as the other brothers did. The Bible doesn't say to honor only if they were good, there are no qualifiers there, just honor your parents. I do have choices in life for my path that I follow. I could allow dysfunction to continue in my life that I inherited from my parents or I can choose to eradicate it from my life. Canaan had to make the same choice. He would have difficulties in life because of the upbringing he had under Ham. I try to personalize the word that I read and make it fit me. It is not how much of the word we know that is going to matter, but how much of it we applied to our life. The good and the bad in  the word of God, it is there to guide us on our way through life. One other thing I have taken away from this story is the Bible does many times record the bad history as well as the good. We can learn from both. We can copy the good and change the bad. I once excused bad behaviour in my life as I would read about King David. After all King David was a man after God's heart. The point to learn was King David repented and changed. We do not have to follow the bad examples, but we change that and follow or copy the good. David repented and so must I. The reason King David had a heart after God is because he would repent when he saw the error of his way. That is something to copy. There are no perfect people, we see countless numbers of people God used and God chose to record some of their failings as well as the good. There is hope for us as we follow after God. God alone can change our hearts. God bless, LVZ.