God

What Was God Waiting For?

Exodus opens with the Israelites growing into a mighty sub-nation within Egypt. And so the Egyptians seek to subjugate them with slavery. They do so successfully. But God does nothing. Pharaoh orders all the newborn male children drown, and God does nothing.

Eventually one little boy is hidden in the reeds down the river by his mother. Her hopes and motivations are not stated in the text, but by having her daughter — Miriam — keep watch, it’s clear that she hopes someone will come rescue the child and his sister can report back what has happened.

Moses is taken in by the daughter of Pharaoh. He is raised by Egyptian royalty in the lap of luxury while his people are beaten and enslaved. One day Moses sees an Egyptian beating a Hebrew man and killed him. The next day Moses saw two Hebrews fighting each other and asked why they would be attacking their friend!

Shortly after this, Moses fled for his life after Pharaoh put out a decree to have him killed for the murder of the Egyptian man. While in Exile Moses got married and had a son. All the while the Israelites are still enslaved and God still hasn’t done anything. But now, now God begins to move.

What took God so long? Why didn’t he step in right away? Because He was waiting for Moses. Moses demonstrated a zealous (maybe a little OVERzealous) love for his fellow Israelites. And this was the man God wanted to task with bringing the law to His people. This man would be the one who would FIRST write down the words and instructions and history of God and His people.

We need to remember when things are going sideways that God has a plan, a purpose, and a person in mind to do address what’s happened. We have a hard time seeing beyond where we are at in any particular moment, but while we only see what’s on the road in front of us, God can see every road. And he knows when our course will change even if we can’t see it yet.

We need to trust enough to wait on God. He is coming. When the time is right.

Exodus 1:1-4:17, 1 Chronicles 6:1-3a | 032/365

God, Revealed

He fills His hands with lightning bolts and hurls each at its target.

This is a description Elihu offers of the God of Adam & Noah. At first it seems quaint a funny. It reads more like a Greek mythological description of Zeus than one of the true living God. But the wider context is God’s control. No lightning bolt touches down without God’s knowledge of the event beforehand. No rain, no heat, no snow. All of it points to God’s power and provision. His love.

In this way, we can see God’s grace poured out on us. And through that common grace we can see His love. And through His love we can understand His value to us personally. This is what we call General Revelation. When we can see glimpses of God in his creation. Jesus tells us that if the people don’t praise Him, the very rocks will cry out. I think this is such an example. Creation points us to its creator. We should do the same.

Go point someone to your creator today.

Job 35-37 | 029/365

Cold Comfort and Eternal Perspective

Rachel. The wife Jacob loved. Just to hear it hurts. Nevermind actually BEING Leah, the first wife — the one without the ‘sparkle’ in her eyes. She lived her life in Rachel’s shadow. When Jacob was afraid of his brother Esau coming to exact revenge, he lined up the concubines and their children first, then Leah with her children, Jacob was in the last wave with Rachel. An inspiring picture of male headship at it best.

Back in Genesis 35 we read about Rachel dying after giving birth to Benjamin, and she was buried there in the desert. Meanwhile at the very end of Genesis, Jacob asks to be buried in the family tomb with Abraham & Sarah, Rebekah & Isaac… and Leah. Her body is already there waiting for him. After a lifetime of faithfulness to a man who didn’t love her. Who probably raised her sister’s children when Rachel passed away. She would be the one Jacob asked to be buried next to. He would grow to love her.

And more than that, God had a plan for Leah. She was the mother of Levi. The man whose priestly tribe would produce Moses, the one who would receive the next Divine Covenant from the LORD. She was also the mother of Judah. A wild man whose tribe would produce King David, the one who would receive the next Divine Covenant after Moses. And of course, Jesus Himself, the bringer of the New Covenant would come from the line of David the king, from the line of Judah the lion, from the line of Leah, the loved of God.

It can be cold comfort to know that we have treasures in Heaven or that God is using our suffering for some greater good, but we need to keep an eternal perspective. Even if we are here for more than 100 years, Heaven is eternal. When we’ve been there 10,000 years bright shining as the sun, we’ve no less days to sing God’s praise than when we’d first begun.

Genesis 47:28-50:26 | 018/365

Whose Will Be Done?

“I admit the deed! — tear up the planks! — here, here! — it is the beating of his hideous heart!” The satisfying release can almost be felt as we reading the thrilling conclusion of Edgar Allan Poe’s ‘The Tell-Tale Heart’. It is the story of a man whose guilt consumes him, until he can do nothing other than admit the deed. His conscience haunted him. It is a similar condition in which we find Joseph’s brothers during today’s reading.

They are struck by the famine Joseph predicted, and so make the trek to Egypt where food has been stored for exactly this occasion. Joseph’s Brothers bring money to Egypt to purchase food as their own supplies have nearly run out. They do not recognize Joseph when they come before him to request to purchase food. Joseph questions the brothers extensively before telling them that unless they bring their youngest brother, they’ll not be allowed to purchase any additional food. So they pay for their portion and head back to Canaan.

Along the way, they find that they have not only the food they purchased, but also the money paid in their bags. A secret blessing from Joseph. But they cannot even receive the blessing, they were still, after all these years, consumed with guilt about what they had done to their brother. It is a curse! they thought, God was surely punishing them. They could never go back.

But eventually they were forced to return. Now we pull God’s careful positioning of Joseph back out of the pocket from yesterday. Because it was during this trip that Jacob revealed himself saying, “God has sent me ahead of you to keep you and your families alive and to preserve many survivors” (Gen 45:7, NLT). Does this mean that God orchestrates evil events to bring about good? Some faithful Christians would say that He does. But I would say that God, in His omniscience, knows what each of us would do in any given circumstance and that He factored in the evil free-will choices of mankind when he providentially arranged the world.

Is it good that you did a bad thing because it achieved God’s Will? No. But God’s Will cannot be defeated by the works of mankind either. His Will be done. Amen.

Genesis 42:1-45:15 | 016/365

Ashes to Ashes and Dust to Dust

Immediately after Jacob returns home and he and Esau bury their father, Isaac, Esau moves his household out of the land because, basically, this town ain’t big enough for the two of us. He settles outside Canaan in Edom. They appointed kings and traded with Egypt, and eventually warred with Israel. How does Esau go so far wrong?

He showed no respect for his birthright, giving it away from some stew. This flippant, careless attitude would have reflected very poorly on him, and likely affected how his family, friends, and possibly even the wider community saw him.

Then he is cheated out of his Father’s blessing by his brother and his mother. It is possible that Rebekah was worried that Esau would treat his father’s blessing with the same contempt as his birthright, and thus sought to put it on the son who appreciated it’s value.

Possibly Esau was scarred by his own regrets and the actions of his family against him, and as a final act of breaking from both his family and the God of his ancestors, Esau leaves the promised land.

And so Esau’s rejection of his family and of God is complete. He will be a ‘self-made man’. And he flourishes into a small, semi-nomadic kingdom that would trade with Egypt and flourish under the Persians…

But eventually the Prophets Jeremiah, Obadiah, and Malachi would all pronounce God’s judgement on Edom. They were wiped off the face of the earth, and until 2021 they were totally absent from the archaeological record.

You can go it on your own. And you might even be quite successful at it. But as God tells Adam in Genesis 3:19, “for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” When this life is over the self-made men and women will return to the ground from which they came and then stand before the judgement throne of God. All their hard work and determination will counted for nothing and their death will be eternal.

Let us appreciate the gifts that God has given. Recognize them for what they are. Cherish them and keep them close to our hearts. In that was we can build something of value that lasts forever.

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