Hard to take in

There are things in the Bible that are hard for me to take.  I'm just being honest.  If you read some of the laws in the Old Testament they seem harsh.  Yet if I want to trust in the Christ of the New Testament I must trust in the God of the Old Testament.  I can not pick and choose what parts I like to believe.  He is Lord of the whole thing or not at all, because one Testament can not be true without the other.  So what shall I do.  I can put the parts out of my mind that I don't like and just concentrate on the things I like.  Yet if I do this I am afraid I will create in my mind a God who is not real.  No, the only way to true peace that I don't have to worry about losing every time I read certain passages of the Old Testament is to accept God as He is period.  That seems hopeless at first doesn't it.  You mean that we must just take everything in the Bible about God no matter how much it seems to contradict the God we have always thought of.  Yes we must.  For this is the only way to ensure that we have not made up a god that is similar to the true God but really not Him at all.  I am not saying that we have to understand everything.  We never will.  Yet in every born-again heart there is a feeling  like Peter had.  In the gospel of John it says that after Jesus preached a very very hard sermon most of the people listening stopped following Him.  Then Jesus turned to the disciples and asked 'are you going to leave to' and Peter replied 'where else can we go Lord, You have words of eternal life.'  

You see, our God is loving and wonderful, but He is not everything we would attempt to make Him.  He is the Lion and the Lamb.