Articles I read

• The world is changing. I realized that the only noteworthy thing I read this week was on Perplexity AI. I asked it two questions, it generated answers for me, and I learned something new. But I didn't actually read an article, even though the AI would have gotten most of its data from various articles on the web. The Olympic games have begun and after Serbia lost to the USA in men's basketball, I saw a comment on YouTube saying "if our country hadn't been torn apart by civil war, all these great players from all these different countries would have been playing for Yugoslavia".

  I've heard the name Yugoslavia many times but I didn't know that was a country that no longer existed. So I went to Perplexity AI to do some quick research and found out that over the last 30 years, the country has been split into 7 independent countries. In another timeline, the current two best players in the NBA, Nikola Jokic and Luka Doncic, would have been on the national team of the same country!

Media I consumed

• While most of the videos I've watched recently have focused on either the Olympics or home and office design, the one I am sharing this week is one that resonates with me because at the age of 14, I found my identity and accepted it, and having that epiphany so early in life has been critical to my success. People may call me a geek in a derogatory manner or call me naive because I won't cut corners or cheat others when I see a clear opportunity to, but those don't hurt me at all. Those people are simply highlighting things about me that are true and that I want to remain true. One of my favorite bands, AJR, talks about how the things some people hate about their music sound like compliments to them, because those things are exactly how they wanted their music to be in the first place.

Spiritual Lessons

"Typology is Bible symbolism or foreshadowing. Characters and stories in the old testament that give us pictures and hints of new testament truths" - Kris Langham. I've been studying the book of Genesis using the Through the Word app, and while I've always known that a lot of things in the new testament were foreshadowed in the old, I didn't realize just how deep it went until I saw just how often it popped up in the last few stories I've covered. For example, Joseph's life in the old testament foreshadowed Jesus' life in the new. Joseph was betrayed, accused, suffered, ascended to rule, God used all the wrong done to him to save many people. I'm skimming over many details to keep this email brief, but you can listen to the full details yourself here. Just scroll down to the lesson titled "Genesis 43 B-Side: Israel & the Return of Christ".

I've also learned more about how God uses even terrible circumstances that He didn't cause. Men are imperfect and make a lot of mistakes and even commit crimes against others. You know the way navigation apps like Google Maps reroute once you miss the turning you were supposed to take to your destination? They find another route to get you there, even if it will take more time. Genesis 38 tells a terrible story about a very sinful and hypocritical man Judah, and his sons who were even worse than him. You can listen to the full story on the same link. Scroll down to the lesson titled "Genesis 38 B-Side: Healing for Life's Big Messes".

Long story short, Judah slept with his late son's wife because she disguised herself as a prostitute, and he had twin children by her. The older of the twins is a direct ancestor to Jesus. God didn't plan for Judah's daughter-in-law to have children by her father-in-law, but it didn't stop God from bringing his plan of Jesus' birth to fruition through that incident. Three verses into the new testament, we can see where these people were mentioned in the ancestry of Jesus.

Matthew 1:3 (NLT) "Judah was the father of Perez and Zerah (whose mother was Tamar). Perez was the father of Hezron. Hezron was the father of Ram."

I hope this gives you very good food for thought!