Returning from the Wilderness

Psalm 63

O God, you are my God, 

   earnestly I seek you;
my soul thirsts for you,
   my body longs for you,
in a dry and weary land
   where there is no water.

I have seen you in the sanctuary
   and beheld your power and your glory.
Because your love is better than life,
   my lips will glorify you. 

I will praise you as long as I live,
   and in your name I will lift up my hands.
My soul will be satisfied as with the richest of foods;
   with singing lips my mouth will praise you.

On my bed I remember you;
   I think of you through the watches of the night.
Because you are my help,
   I sing in the shadow of your wings.
My soul clings to you;
   your right hand upholds me.

They who seek my life will be destroyed;
   they will go down to the depths of the earth.
They will be given over to the sword
   and become food for jackals.

But the king will rejoice in God;
   all who swear by God’s name will praise him,
   while the mouths of liars will be silenced.

I feel like I'm returning from the wilderness.  I've gotten lackadaisical in my study of God's Word...reading it just to be reading it...mostly so I could check it off my mental to do list, and honestly, so I wouldn't feel guilty for not being in the Word. To be truthful, I may have been reading, but since I was not really reflecting on the meaning of the words as they floated past my eyes, it's as if I haven't been in the Word at all. I've found it very difficult to remember or internalize anything without this process of journal-blogging. And, because I didn't "write" down any of my thoughts as I've read through these last books, I have nothing to review, nothing to jog my memory.

This morning's reading included Psalm 63, a chapter near and dear to my heart and perfectly placed by the Lord on this day. I'd just mentioned to a friend this week that I felt like I'd been in a wilderness...wandering apart from close fellowship with the Lord. I realize it was not Him who moved...it was me. I'm the one who wandered...God was right there all the time, waiting for me to come back. Ah, my soul thirsts for You, my body longs for You, in a dry and weary land where there is no water.  I have seen You in the sanctuary and beheld your power and your glory. Because your love is better than life,my lips will glorify you. I will praise you as long as I live,and in your name I will lift up my hands.

Thank you Lord Jesus for drawing me back...close to Your heart...thank You for loving me.

The Law

The Pentateuch - completed.  Thankfulness for my Savior's sacrifice abounds.  Gratitude to my Lord overflows. Thank you Lord that I am free...free in you...free from the law.  Stick me to You, O Lord, with the stickiest of glue, that I might follow in your paths.  You always keep Your promises, O Lord.  Your eye is always upon me.

Deuteronomy 32:4 - "He is the Rock, His works are perfect and all His ways are just.  A faithful God who does no wrong, upright and just is He."

Deuteronomy 33:26-27a:  "There is no one like the God of Israel.  He rides across the heavens to help you, across the skies in majestic splendor.  The eternal God is your refuge and his everlasting arms are under you."

Psalm 91:14-16:
"The LORD says, 'I will rescue those who love me.
I will protect those who trust in my name.
When they call on me, I will answer;
I will be with them in trouble
I will rescue and honor them.
I will reward them with a long life
and give them my salvation.'"

Grateful...

That one word sums up my heart attitude this morning - grateful. Reading through the book of Exodus and all of the ceremonies and rules and details of the old covenant...the manner in which Aaron and his sons were anointed for service, the offerings made, the process, the ceremony. It's enough to make my head spin. How ever did they keep all those details straight?  It's not like they had a simple way of recording the words of God.  They could not just quickly download them as a .pdf file and store them on their laptop for future use. Did God bless Moses with a superhuman ability to remember? He told all of these things to Moses on the mountain...and Moses had to remember them and put them into practice after he descended to once again be with the people of Israel. I suppose much of my trouble in reading through this passage comes from the fact that it is so unfamiliar to my current-day Christianity...animal sacrifice, priestly garments, law, law, law.

Jesus made it clear in Matthew 22:37-38, the greatest commandment is to "'love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.  This is the first and greatest commandment.  A second is equally important: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'  The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments." Two commands...this sums up the law and the prophets. Yet, even with only two commands, I mess up royally on a moment-by-moment basis.

Through Jesus, a new covenant was made. His blood flowed, and by it I am washed clean. His death purchased for me the righteousness of God. May I live in the light of this promise, filled with the knowledge that He died in my place...that I am reconciled to God, cleansed of my sin...completely and wholly undeserved. Thank you Jesus! May my heart continue to overflow with gratefulness for all You have done for me.

Little by Little

In Exodus 23:29-30, God tells the Israelites that He will deliver them into the Promised Land, which is currently filled with other peoples (Hittites, Canaanites, Hivites, etc.). However, the Lord says that He will not drive them out all at once, because the land would become desolate and the wild animals would overrun the land.  So, instead, He tells them, "Little by little I will drive them out before you, until you have increased enough to take possession of the land."

Though it frustrates me at times, it seems this is also the way the Lord works in my life...clearing things out little by little.  Sometimes, I'd like Him to just clear it out all at once and get it over with.  Pruning hurts!  But, I must trust in the wisdom of God and lean into Him.  He wants me to "increase" as He takes over more and more areas of my life.  He wants me to grow!

Don't Just Stand There! Do Something!

The Hebrew people are encamped near the Red Sea and nothing but wilderness separates them from the approaching Egyptian army, fully armored, brandishing weapons and kicking up loads of dust as their mighty chariots advance. Imagine the mass of quivering Israelite humanity...600,000 Hebrew men, plus all of their women and children, all traveling on foot...watching the Egyptian army quickly covering the ground that separates them. They challenge Moses, demanding to know why he hadn't left them in Egypt. After all, weren't there enough graves in Egypt for all of them...why did they have to come out into the wilderness to die?

Moses calmly reassures them, "Don't be afraid. Just stand where you are and watch the LORD rescue you. The Egyptians that you see today will never be seen again.  The LORD himself will fight for you. You won't have to lift a finger in your defense!" (Exodus 14:13-14 NLT)

Side question...how did Moses communicate to what must have been at least 1.2 million people, over the din of panic, the braying animals, and the crying children?

Then the Lord tells Moses, "Don't just stand there...do something."  Well, not exactly in those words, it was more like:  "Why are you crying out to me? Tell the people to get moving!"  (v. 15)  God commanded Moses to stretch out his staff over the waters of the Red Sea and divide it.  Moses had seen the miraculous ways God had used this same staff in his many meetings with Pharaoh.  Moses didn't hesitate.  The pillars of cloud and fire move in between the Hebrew people and the Egyptians, hiding the Hebrews from their view.  I've always pictured the pillars as not much more than a column on the front of a large museum.  This pillar hid 1.2 million people...I guess that's more like the whole museum and then some!  Further amazing descriptions of how God uses the pillars in verse 20: "The cloud settled between the Israelite and Egyptian camps. As night came, the pillar of cloud turned into a pillar of fire, lighting the Israelite camp. But the cloud became darkness to the Egyptians, and they couldn't find the Israelites."

With the pillars in place, Moses stretches his hand over the sea and God parts the waters.  All through the night, God caused a wind to blow on the exposed seabed (but, this wind did not blow away the pillar of cloud and darkness that separated the two people groups).  In the morning, the Israelites walked through the Red Sea on dry ground.  What must it have been like, walking between two walls of water, the fish and sea creatures staring at you from the temporary God-made boundaries of their watery home?  The Red Sea at it's deepest point is 1.3 miles deep.  Just imagine the height of those walls of water! Ahhh, the magnificent power of God!

The Egyptian armies pursued the people of God into the sea, only to have the waters collapse on them.
I find it interesting that the Pharaoh and his armies were drowned in the Red Sea...sounds a bit like "what goes around, comes around."

Undiscovered Sin

I find it humorous sometimes the things that pop out of Scripture on a particular day.  Today it was the fact that Moses took his wife and family with him to Egypt.  I've known that Moses was married.  But, I always assumed Moses traveled the road to Egypt alone...just him and God.


There's a quirky little passage towards the end of Exodus 4.  In the midst of Moses' obedience - as he's on his way back to Egypt to confront the Pharaoh and ask for the release of the Hebrew people, God confronts Moses.  With little to no explanation in the text, it says that God confronted Moses when he had stopped for the night...and was about to kill him.  WHAT?!  Moses was in the middle of doing God's will.  Why would God kill him?  God is God...and He knew all along that Moses had not circumcised his son.  So, why didn't God confront Moses on this issue from the burning bush, or at some other point before now...when Moses is at the proverbial tip of the sword?  Zipporah, Moses' wife, seems to get it immediately.  She takes a sharp rock and circumcises their son, which puts an immediate end to God's confrontation.  How did she know?  


Circumcision was the mark of the Abrahamic covenant, a sign that the people of God were walking after the Spirit, not after the flesh - that's why God had them cut away the flesh.  It seems that Moses did not "man up" and have his own son circumcised.  Was it a conflict between him and Zipporah?  Was this "mark" a source of marital conflict for the two of them?  There is little else in the text, except that she threw the bloody foreskin at Moses' feet and made a seemingly sarcastic, angry comment about Moses being a bloody husband to her.  


Matthew Henry's commentary on this passage helped to shine a bit of light onto the subject at hand for me:
"...when God discovers to us what is amiss in our lives we must give all diligence to amend it speedily, and particularly return to the duties we have neglected. The putting away of our sins is indispensably necessary to the removal of God’s judgements. This is the voice of every rod, it calls to us to return to him that smites us."


What undiscovered sin is present in my life?  What does God need to uncover in my heart?  May I not ignore His voice.

Faith Blessings

I've always been fascinated with the story of how God protected Moses...the Pharaoh had ordered all newborn Hebrew males to be drowned, but Moses' mother fashioned a basket out of papyrus reeds and waterproofed it with tar and placed Moses inside.  Then, she set the baby-filled basket in the Nile River - the very water the other baby boys were being drowned in.  Miriam, Moses' sister, kept a protective watch over the basket on its journey down the Nile, towards it's unbelievable final destination, the palace of the Pharaoh himself!  The Pharaoh's daughter spied the basket and requests that it be brought to her.  As she opened the basket, she instantly recognizes that Moses is a Hebrew baby.  But, Moses' cry touches her heart and she takes pity on him.  Miriam enters the scene and asks if the princess would like her to find Hebrew wet nurse to nurse the baby.  When the princess wholeheartedly agrees, Miriam runs to get none other than Moses' own mother!  Today, as I was reading, a new little factoid registered in my brain...Exodus 2:9 tells us that the princess commands Moses' mother to take him home and nurse him, and as if that isn't enough, Moses' mother will be paid for her efforts.

Ah, the blessings of faith.  Moses' mother trusted in God's protective hand over her son...she'd hidden him for the first three months of his life and then set him off in a basket down the Nile River.  This story enriches my own faith. I pray that God will increase my faith this day.