Tag: Trusting in God

Digging in Deeper: Exodus 15:25-27

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“So he cried out to the Lord, and the Lord showed him a tree. When he threw it into the water, the water became drinkable. The Lord made a statute and ordinance for them at Marah, and he tested them there. He said, ‘If you will carefully obey the Lord your God, do what is right in his sight, pay attention to his commands, and keep all his statutes, I will not inflict any illnesses on you that I inflicted on the Egyptians. For I am the Lord who heals you.’ Then they came to Elim, where there were twelve springs and seventy date palms, and they camped there by the water.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

Have you ever had a teachable moment? It doesn’t really matter right now if you were the student or the teacher in it. Teachable moments come along every now and then and bring with them the opportunity to impart possibly life-changing information or wisdom. Israel’s experience at the waters at Marah provided just such an opportunity for the Lord. Let’s take a moment to think through what God had to teach them, why it mattered, and why it points to something important about the nature of our relationship with Him.

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Morning Musing: Exodus 14:29-31

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“But the Israelites had walked through the sea on dry ground, with the waters like a wall to them on their right and their left. That day the Lord saved Israel from the power of the Egyptians, and Israel saw the Egyptians dead on the seashore. When Israel saw the great power that the Lord used against the Egyptians, the people feared the Lord and believed in him and in his servant Moses.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

What did it take for you to finally believe in God? If you’re not there yet, what would it take? For Israel, it took a pretty impressive display of power. Today, let’s recap this last part of the story, talk about what God was trying to accomplish here, and why believing in God is something worthwhile.

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Digging in Deeper: Exodus 14:13-14

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“But Moses said to the people, ‘Don’t be afraid. Stand firm and see the Lord’s salvation that he will accomplish for you today; for the Egyptians you see today, you will never see again. The Lord will fight for you, and you must be quiet.'” (CSB – Read the chapter)

There are all kinds of stories about fighting against the forces of darkness and evil. Spiritual warfare is a common theme, especially in the horror genre. And in pretty much all of our stories about fighting spiritual forces that are opposed to God, the battle always goes about the same way. We do all the work. Yes, God may give us a little bit of help in the form of a powerful weapon or talisman or something like that, but the victory is always ours. We achieve it. We save ourselves. This makes for a fun story, but in terms of an approximation of reality, it really doesn’t come close. What we see here is a much better picture of how our biggest battles are really won. Let’s talk about what’s happening here as Moses tries to reassure the people in the face of what appears to them to be their impending doom.

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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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Digging in Deeper: Exodus 2:15-20

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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. Now the priest of Midian had seven daughters. They came to draw water and filled the troughs to water their father’s flock. Then some shepherds arrived and drove them away, but Moses came to their rescue and watered their flock. When they returned to their father Reuel, he asked, ‘Why have you come back so quickly today?’ They answered, ‘An Egyptian rescued us from the shepherds. He even drew water for us and watered the flock.’ ‘So where is he?’ he asked his daughters? ‘Why then did you leave the man behind? Invite him to eat dinner.'” (CSB – Read the chapter)

When you hear something described as putrid, your first instinct is probably not going to be to go over and take a big whiff. Unless you are an adolescent boy, in which case, yes, that may very well be your first instinct. Putrid things don’t tend to smell very good. How ironic it is, then, that the word “potpourri,” which typically is used for a mixture of dried bits of flowers and other odds and ends that have been perfumed to provide a pleasing fragrance to a room is a transliteration of a French word that literally means, ‘the putrid pot.” When I tell you that today’s post is going to be a bit of a potpourri of things, though, I don’t have that in mind at all, and I promise it won’t smell. I’m thinking rather of potpourri in the Jeopardy sense of a mixture of all sorts of different things, a meaning which, interestingly, also comes from the same French word that originally referred to a Spanish stew that could include a whole fridge full of odds and ends. That’s a long introduction to tell you that today we are going to look at a number of different things in these verses that aren’t necessarily connected, but which are all interesting in their own right, and will help you get a better sense of what is happening here in a passage that usually gets overlooked on our way to the more exciting third chapter of Exodus. Let’s dive right in.

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