Category: Morning Musings

Morning Musing: Exodus 4:1

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“Moses answered, ‘What if they won’t believe me and will not obey me but say, “The Lord did not appear to you”?'” (CSB – Read the chapter)

One of the bumper sticker truisms about the Christian faith that sometimes gets thrown around is that whatever God calls us to, He equips us for. That process, however, is not always direct and smooth, and sometimes – especially if we don’t want to do it – we can be rather reluctant recipients of His help. Moses fits rather spectacularly into this category. In the first part of chapter four here, we find Moses trying to get out of what God was sending him to do. What we see here is not the great man of faith we know him to be, but who he was before that. Moses tries three times to get out of what God wants him to do. Let’s look at each of these in turn this week, starting with this first one.

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Morning Musing: Exodus 3:18-20

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“They will listen to what you say. Then you, along with the elders of Israel, must go to the king of Egypt and say to him: The Lord, the God of the Hebrews, has met with us. Now please let us go on a three-day trip into the wilderness so that we may sacrifice to the Lord our God. However, I know that the king of Egypt will not allow you to go, even under force from a strong hand. But when I stretch out my hand and strike Egypt with all my miracles that I will perform in it, after that, he will let you go.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

Every now and then, a line from a movie will become immortalized into our cultural memory. A particularly popular film might give us several of them. Consider the Star Wars franchise. Its most famous line, of course, is, “May the Force be with you.” Another line that is nearly as common in the various Star Wars properties is, “I’ve got a bad feeling about this.” That line seems appropriate for this next part of the story. God here is telling Moses what is going to happen next. And while the people of Israel are going to accept him and his mission, the king of Egypt is not. In a bit of ominous foretelling, we are given a glimpse of the great conflict that is coming. This morning, let’s introduce a theme that we are going to come back to several times in the coming weeks.

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Morning Musing: Exodus 2:21-22

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“Moses agreed to stay with the man, and he gave his daughter Zipporah to Moses in marriage. She gave birth to a son whom he named Gershom, for he said, ‘I have been a resident alien in a foreign land.'” (CSB – Read the chapter)

Have you ever found yourself stuck somewhere you didn’t plan to be and didn’t necessarily want to be? For many of us, that can easily lead to a season of bitterness. We make do because we don’t have any other choice, but we’re not happy about it. And we make sure everyone knows we’re not happy about it too. But what if there’s another perspective on things? Sometimes seeing someone else’s story – like Moses’ here – can give us a glimpse through another lens that can be truly transformative if we’ll let it.

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Morning Musing: Romans 12:19-21

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“Friends, do not avenge yourselves; instead, leave room for God’s wrath, because it is written, ‘Vengeance belongs to me; I will repay, says the Lord. But if your enemy is hungry, feed him. If he is thirsty, give him something to drink. For in so doing you will be heaping fiery coals on his head.’ Do not be conquered by evil, but conquer evil with good.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

We live in a culture that prizes strength, not humility and gentleness. What’s more, we are trending more in that direction every day. We cheer for politicians who promise not to serve us, but to fight for us. More and more we fight amongst ourselves, battling for worldview supremacy in what is increasingly treated as a zero-sum game. We call the presentation of ideas we don’t like “violence” such that it becomes much easier to justify actual violence used to silence them. The result of all of this is a culture that is increasingly coarse and hard, without much joy. Is there anything that can brighten up this gloomy scene? Ted Lasso seems to know, and halfway through his third season he’s well on his way to showing us. Let’s talk about the good, the bad, and one of the most explicitly Christian scenes I’ve watched in a major studio series in a long time.

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Morning Musing: Exodus 2:15, 23

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“When Pharaoh heard about this, he tried to kill Moses. But Moses fled from Pharaoh and went to live in the land of Midian, and sat down by a well. . .After a long time, the king of Egypt died. The Israelites groaned because of their difficult labor, they cried out, and their cry for help because of the difficult labor ascended to God.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

There are some people everyone wants to be. This is usually because of what the person has accomplished. Many of these folks are athletes. Kids in particular watch these people perform and try to mimic what they do in their own playing. The trouble is, most of these superlatively talented individuals make doing what they do look easy. The truth, however, is anything but that. Doing what they do the way they do it has taken them years of hard work and sacrifice. We want to reproduce their success without the time in the wilderness. That, however, is not how life works. This truth is something we see borne out in the Scriptures including Moses’ story here. Let’s talk about it.

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