Tag: Trust

When God Shows Up

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When life gets hard, we want answers. When life gets really hard, we demand them. We want to know what’s going on, why it’s happening, and what is going to be done about it. Job certainly did. He cried out to God for answers on why all the terrible things he had experienced had happened to him. God doesn’t always give us direct answers to our questions – He’s certainly not entitled to – but He did finally come and respond to Job. It wasn’t the response Job was expecting. As we wrap up our series through Job today, let’s talk about what He said, and what we can learn from it for our own hard situations.

When God Shows Up

Do you remember the worst lecture you ever got from your parents? While I confess that I fall to it way more often than I should with my boys, my folks either weren’t much for lecturing, or else I’ve just forgotten all of them (which really isn’t very comforting news for all the wisdom we as parents impart to our children through the vehicle of the lecture…). Still, though, there are times when as parents we need to impart a great deal of important information to our children in a rapid-fire fashion. And, coincidentally or not, these times often happen to coincide with something they’ve done that wasn’t perhaps totally on the up-and-up, and when we are in a state of mild- to extreme-agitation. Now, if that happens to come across as a lecture, is that our fault? Well…probably…but that much is not where I want to go this morning. We’ll come back to this idea in a second. 

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Digging in Deeper: Exodus 35:1-3

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“Moses assembled the entire Israelite community and said to them, ‘These are the things that the Lord has commanded you to do: For six days work is to be done, but on the seventh day you are to have a holy day, a Sabbath of complete rest to the Lord. Anyone who does work on it must be executed. Do not light a fire in any of your homes on the Sabbath day.'” (CSB – Read the chapter)

If you listen to certain preachers long enough, you’ll start to hear the same points raised over and over again. There are a handful of ideas I have talked about with my own congregation in a certain way so many times that when I start talking about them, some of the folks in the room can finish my sentence for me. Everybody has something about which they are especially passionate. This passion will show itself through their words and actions. It will become the theme of their life. Everything they do, it seems, is filtered through the lens of whatever it is. Hopefully the passion is a good one, but whether it is or not, it is going to be definitional for them because that’s the nature of passion. As we get started on the home stretch of Exodus today, we are reminded yet again about one of God’s passions. Let’s talk yet again about the Sabbath.

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Morning Musing: Exodus 17:8-11

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“At Rephidim, Amalek came and fought against Israel. Moses said to Joshua, ‘Select some men for us and go fight against Amalek. Tomorrow I will stand on the hilltop with God’s staff in my hand.’ Joshua did as Moses had told him, and fought against Amalek, while Moses, Aaron, and Hur went up to the top of the hill. While Moses held up his hand, Israel prevailed, but whenever he put his hand down, Amalek prevailed.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

How does God’s power work? If you are someone who believes His power exists and can accomplish things in our lives, that would seem to be a pretty important question to answer. Sometimes God answers big questions like this at unexpected times. As we take the next step forward in our journey with Israel in this new year, we find ourselves faced with an opportunity to reflect on this very question. Let’s take it and see what we can learn.

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Morning Musing: Exodus 16:24-30

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“So they set it aside until morning as Moses commanded, and it didn’t stink or have maggots in it. ‘Eat it today,’ Moses said, ‘because today is a Sabbath to the Lord. Today you won’t find any in the field. For six days you will gather it, but on the seventh day, the Sabbath, there will be none.’ Yet on the seventh day some of the people went out to gather, but they did not find any. Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘How long will you refuse to keep my commands and instructions? Understand that the Lord has given you the Sabbath; therefore on the sixth day he will give you two days’ worth of bread. Each of you stay where you are; no one is to leave his place on the seventh day.’ So the people rested on the seventh day.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

One of the most natural things in the world is for children to trust their parents. At some point they become more skeptical or even outright untrusting, but while this may be because their parents earned such suspicion (don’t ever lie to your kids, even in jest; that does far more damage to them than you could imagine), more often it is because sin has crept further into their hearts, leading them to a greater mistrust of everything. That’s one of the things sin does: it cultivates mistrust and doubt in our hearts. Because of this, trusting in God is not natural for us. As a result, God gives us things to help us learn to trust. Let’s talk about one of the most important ones He gave to Israel.

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Digging in Deeper: Exodus 16:1-3

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“The entire Israelite community departed from Elim and came to the Wilderness of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month after they had left the land of Egypt. The entire Israelite community grumbled against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness. The Israelites said to them, ‘If only we had died by the Lord’s hand in the land of Egypt, when we sat by pots of meat and ate all the bread we wanted. Instead, you brought us into this wilderness to make this whole assembly die of hunger!'” (CSB – Read the chapter)

Kids can be whiny. I know this. I have three of them. If you have kids, yours are whiny too. I was whiny when I was a kid. Whiny kids is a natural part of life. They do it because they want what they want (like all of us do), but they don’t have any power to get what they want. So, they use the only tactic they think they do have: to irritate the world around them into giving it to them. Kids have to be taught by loving parents not to do this or else they will grow up to be whiny adults. Whiny adults are a sad thing to see. They are an even more irritating thing to experience. The roots of whining actually go deeper than this, though. More than merely a lack of power, they reveal a lack of something else the next part of the story of Israel’s journey into the wilderness gives us the chance to explore.

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