Frailty, thou art mankind

I'm reading in Genesis--y'know, start at the very beginning, a very good place to start--and I just finished reading about all of the geneologies--more interesting to read when I'm older. Now I'm almost up to the Flood story with Noah and the evil surrounding him. (Dude, his own family had some issues too...)

Anyhow, as I was reading, I got a very different sense of the text from any that I had felt before. I'm reading in the NLT these days, and it's similar to the NIV, but different enough to get a different perspective. But I digress. The passage:

"The Lord observed the extent of human wickedness on the earth, and he saw that everything they thought or imagined was consistently and totally evil. So the Lord was sorry he had ever made them and put them on the earth. It broke his heart." Genesis 6:5-6 (Also titled "The World Gone Wrong." Fitting title, ain't it?)

For some reason, rereading the Bible starting in the Old Testament, I'm getting a better sense of the heart of God. I used to feel like God had a dichotomous spirit that somehow changed between the Old and New Testament covenants, but God is immutable. I'm starting to see that more.

I think another reason why I'm seeing this more is that my personal perspective of who God is and how He feels towards His creation is changing. I can't boast in saying that I know God--how can any one person truly know Him in this lifetime?--but at the same time, I know Him better than I used to, and I'm beginning to see how much He cares for me. I used to think, "God loves the world, but somehow His grace and compassion can't extend to me and what I've done." How arrogant of me to think that and to undermine God's authority over everything!