Last chapter, God comes down and reveals to Moses that He will be using him to deliver the Israelites.
God has come prepared. He has a plan, and He's waiting for Moses to co-sign on the execution.
However, Moses wants nothing to do with it and tries to dissuade God from using him; but He doesn't budge. Moses' excuses did not matter because like He said in the beginning, "I will be with you."
The Great I AM said, "I will be with you," and all Moses could focus on was his resume, his failures, his shortcomings.
Moses was pretty self-centered and couldn't see beyond himself to realize that God could and would take care of everything that would trip him up.
What if they don't believe me? "Here are three signs that you can show them."
What if the pharaoh doesn't listen? "I know he won't, and I'll show him to obey."
What if the words fail me? "Who gave you your mouth? Was it not I?"
God remains patient through Moses' babbling because none of it mattered.
His reputation didn't matter.
His rap sheet didn't matter.
His stutter didn't matter.
God knows who He calls. He's unsurprised by our hang-ups and short-comings. He knows and still chooses us, still wants us.
There is nothing in us too broken that cannot be redeemed by God. There is nothing in us too broken that can stop God's power from working through us. Nothing.
But Moses doesn't know that. All he sees is himself, which obscures his vision of the living God. So God sends Aaron his brother to shield Moses from confronting his fears and insecurities upfront.
With his comfort zone intact, Moses goes back to Egypt with his family, and his wife saves him from the wrath of God by circumcising her son. Afterwards, he meets with Aaron in the desert to rehearse the plan.
And the fourth chapter ends with God's plan unfolding the way He planned.
Exodus 3
Sunday, December 23, 2018
I've written on Exodus 3 and heard about Exodus 3 many times that I can regurgitate something without rereading the passage. And sometimes that can happen to us, where we become familiar with something that we don't expect to learn or experience anything new. We rely on the old, but God is always going to the next, doing something new.
It takes humility and a working sense of wonder or expectation to be surprised; to let go of the old and lean into the unknown. To say, "Here I am," with an open and willing heart. To not get sucked into the comfort of yesterday.
I could go on with the analogies, but I'll stop to say that the word, God's word is alive and well. It's been approached a hundred billion times and it's as fresh as when God first spoke, "Let there be light." If you allow it, the bible won't become a routine. It's too sharp for that.
Talking about routine, Moses is stuck in one. He tends to his father-in-law's sheep until he sees a burning bush. And not one to mind his own business, Moses draws close to the phenomenon because the bush is on fire but not burning up.
Nosy man!
When he draws close, God calls out and orders him to remove his sandals because he just entered a holy space; he just entered the Holies of Holy.
(Because of the cross, I pray that we all realize that because God chooses to rest in us, we are holy; we are set apart not because of anything we do or anything we are but because He is here in us. We are not ordinary humans taking up space. We are His home.)
Then God shares with Moses that He's heard and seen what His people have gone through, and He plans on sending Moses down there to set everything straight.
Next, Moses says what anyone in their "right" mind would say when the Creator extends an invitation to join Him on a thrilling (horrifying) adventure: "Who me?"
And God says, "I will be with you," but He also says the best line I think He has ever said when Moses asks for a calling card. With these next few words, I see God speaking into a mega phone and dropping it because what else needs to be said when He says this: "I AM WHO I AM."
Chills. every. single. time.
It's a full explanation even when it feels like it's not.
He is who He is.
He's the one that has seen that and has heard this and still chose to send His Son to the cross to die for a sinner like me and you.
He's the one who does exceedingly and abundantly all that we can ask or think. He is better than we've imagined too.
He's the one who spoke the world into existence, and at the mention of His name, all knees will bow down and all tongues will confess that He is Lord because there is no one like Him anywhere else in the universe.
And so much more. His name holds all that, all of His story, His being, His power.
Yahweh: I AM WHO I AM.
And He comes in the form of a burning bush to meet with a man who, as we will see next chapter, has written himself off.
But we'll see that God has a plan.
Remember that the next time He asks you to come along with Him on a journey you don't feel quite equipped to do.
It takes humility and a working sense of wonder or expectation to be surprised; to let go of the old and lean into the unknown. To say, "Here I am," with an open and willing heart. To not get sucked into the comfort of yesterday.
I could go on with the analogies, but I'll stop to say that the word, God's word is alive and well. It's been approached a hundred billion times and it's as fresh as when God first spoke, "Let there be light." If you allow it, the bible won't become a routine. It's too sharp for that.
Talking about routine, Moses is stuck in one. He tends to his father-in-law's sheep until he sees a burning bush. And not one to mind his own business, Moses draws close to the phenomenon because the bush is on fire but not burning up.
Nosy man!
When he draws close, God calls out and orders him to remove his sandals because he just entered a holy space; he just entered the Holies of Holy.
(Because of the cross, I pray that we all realize that because God chooses to rest in us, we are holy; we are set apart not because of anything we do or anything we are but because He is here in us. We are not ordinary humans taking up space. We are His home.)
Then God shares with Moses that He's heard and seen what His people have gone through, and He plans on sending Moses down there to set everything straight.
Next, Moses says what anyone in their "right" mind would say when the Creator extends an invitation to join Him on a thrilling (horrifying) adventure: "Who me?"
And God says, "I will be with you," but He also says the best line I think He has ever said when Moses asks for a calling card. With these next few words, I see God speaking into a mega phone and dropping it because what else needs to be said when He says this: "I AM WHO I AM."
Chills. every. single. time.
It's a full explanation even when it feels like it's not.
He is who He is.
He's the one that has seen that and has heard this and still chose to send His Son to the cross to die for a sinner like me and you.
He's the one who does exceedingly and abundantly all that we can ask or think. He is better than we've imagined too.
He's the one who spoke the world into existence, and at the mention of His name, all knees will bow down and all tongues will confess that He is Lord because there is no one like Him anywhere else in the universe.
And so much more. His name holds all that, all of His story, His being, His power.
Yahweh: I AM WHO I AM.
And He comes in the form of a burning bush to meet with a man who, as we will see next chapter, has written himself off.
But we'll see that God has a plan.
Remember that the next time He asks you to come along with Him on a journey you don't feel quite equipped to do.
Exodus 2:11-25
Saturday, December 22, 2018
Moses, the adopted son of the pharaoh's daughter, grows up. And he goes through quite a bit of growing pains in this part of his story.
He peeps on an Egyptian beating on a fellow Hebrew, and he kills the offender when it seems as though no one sees. But someone did. The very next day, he sees a pair of Hebrews fighting. He tries to intervene, but the offending one turns on Moses and accuses, "Are you gonna kill me like you killed the Egyptian?"
That statement shakes Moses to the core, but not as much as what happens next.
The pharaoh finds out and wants to kill Moses, but Moses runs into the desert because he is no fool.
But he doesn't stop with the intervening. Luckily this time is a charm. When he helps the women water their flock, they bring him to their father's home for some hospitality and a wife (and a little while later, a son too)!
Cut back to Egypt: the Israelites are miserable under the yoke of slavery imposed by the Egyptians, and they cry out to God.
God hears, He sees and He remembers His covenant to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He's about to make moves in Exodus 3.
God is literally the God of promises, and He's a keeper of promises. He's the God of fulfilled promises. But in this chapter, when I read "His covenant to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob," I see that He's willing to go the distance with His promises. In Genesis 15, He told Abraham, "I'll make you the father of nations," which in and of itself is a huge promise. So huge that He said it again to Isaac, then again to Jacob.
(What mantle does He want to fulfill in you? In your family? In your generation?)
He doesn't mind reminding us of what He wants to do in us and through us. He doesn't want us to forget that what He has planned for us is so much bigger than us, and it doesn't start or end with us. It begins with Him. It also ends with Him.
We just get to be a part of the story.
He peeps on an Egyptian beating on a fellow Hebrew, and he kills the offender when it seems as though no one sees. But someone did. The very next day, he sees a pair of Hebrews fighting. He tries to intervene, but the offending one turns on Moses and accuses, "Are you gonna kill me like you killed the Egyptian?"
That statement shakes Moses to the core, but not as much as what happens next.
The pharaoh finds out and wants to kill Moses, but Moses runs into the desert because he is no fool.
But he doesn't stop with the intervening. Luckily this time is a charm. When he helps the women water their flock, they bring him to their father's home for some hospitality and a wife (and a little while later, a son too)!
Cut back to Egypt: the Israelites are miserable under the yoke of slavery imposed by the Egyptians, and they cry out to God.
God hears, He sees and He remembers His covenant to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He's about to make moves in Exodus 3.
God is literally the God of promises, and He's a keeper of promises. He's the God of fulfilled promises. But in this chapter, when I read "His covenant to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob," I see that He's willing to go the distance with His promises. In Genesis 15, He told Abraham, "I'll make you the father of nations," which in and of itself is a huge promise. So huge that He said it again to Isaac, then again to Jacob.
(What mantle does He want to fulfill in you? In your family? In your generation?)
He doesn't mind reminding us of what He wants to do in us and through us. He doesn't want us to forget that what He has planned for us is so much bigger than us, and it doesn't start or end with us. It begins with Him. It also ends with Him.
We just get to be a part of the story.
Exodus 2:1-10
Friday, December 21, 2018
Second day of this journey, and when I opened up the bible this morning, I wondered what if I don't get anything today like I did yesterday, should I still come here and write, and I think I should.
Discipline doesn't come with feelings or revelations; it comes through the grueling ordinary, through normal's mundane.
So here we go!
In the beginning of Exodus 2, a boy met a girl and married her. Their second child was a boy, and remember that they were under the mandate of killing all the Hebrew boys. But the mother couldn't cast him off into the Nile to die. Instead she kept him for three months, and when she couldn't hide him anymore, she hid him among the reeds in a sturdy basket.
His sister, however, couldn't let him go. She stayed nearby and came in close when the pharaoh's daughter found the baby boy among the reed. The sister then proposed that she find a nurse for the child, and the pharaoh's daughter agreed, and the mother and the baby are united again for a little while.
In the Daily Grace Co. devotional, she wrote that the pharaoh set out to kill the sons but underestimated the daughters, and that truth just warms my heart. And not only that, but there's nothing that can take us out; there will always be a way out for us. In this case, the women were the way out of the pharaoh's cruelty.
However, I want to land on the incredible sacrifice of the mother: she had to let go of Moses twice in hopes that he would have a better life away from her. She couldn't envision what would come of her baby boy; who would have thought that her son would be adopted into royalty, into the same royal family that demanded his death?
No, in her reality was certain misery if Moses would have stayed with her, that's what she knew for sure. But the rest was faith and hope.
To let go is to be filled with faith and hope that on the other side of the unknown is better than the known and even the imagined that's in our heads.
Discipline doesn't come with feelings or revelations; it comes through the grueling ordinary, through normal's mundane.
So here we go!
In the beginning of Exodus 2, a boy met a girl and married her. Their second child was a boy, and remember that they were under the mandate of killing all the Hebrew boys. But the mother couldn't cast him off into the Nile to die. Instead she kept him for three months, and when she couldn't hide him anymore, she hid him among the reeds in a sturdy basket.
His sister, however, couldn't let him go. She stayed nearby and came in close when the pharaoh's daughter found the baby boy among the reed. The sister then proposed that she find a nurse for the child, and the pharaoh's daughter agreed, and the mother and the baby are united again for a little while.
In the Daily Grace Co. devotional, she wrote that the pharaoh set out to kill the sons but underestimated the daughters, and that truth just warms my heart. And not only that, but there's nothing that can take us out; there will always be a way out for us. In this case, the women were the way out of the pharaoh's cruelty.
However, I want to land on the incredible sacrifice of the mother: she had to let go of Moses twice in hopes that he would have a better life away from her. She couldn't envision what would come of her baby boy; who would have thought that her son would be adopted into royalty, into the same royal family that demanded his death?
No, in her reality was certain misery if Moses would have stayed with her, that's what she knew for sure. But the rest was faith and hope.
To let go is to be filled with faith and hope that on the other side of the unknown is better than the known and even the imagined that's in our heads.
Exodus 1
Thursday, December 20, 2018
I'm doing a bible study from Daily Daily Co., and I thought that sharing on here what I'm learning will help me be consistent in both my devotional and my blog.
Today, I delved into Exodus 1, where the Israelites settled into Egypt after a famine nearly wiped them out. In this next phase, they grew into the promise of God, fruitful and multiplying in a land that was not their own.
And the pharaoh, who did not know the Joseph who saved the nation, nor the God who blessed the Israelites, peeped this progress, noticed the fulfillment of the promise, and grew fearful. Because he did not know God, he became afraid of what God was doing in the Israelites and was convinced that their growth would be detrimental to Egypt, not realizing that he took a step towards completing the self-fulfilling prophecy when he enslaved the foreigners.
Yet, they just grew even more under the oppression. As the Egyptians watched the Israelites' multiply, the pharaoh came up with a more sinister plan to cripple the Israelites: kill off their baby boys.
All this because he saw their potential, he saw God's blessing although he knew nothing about God or His plan.
And this moment in their history wasn't the only time that the enemy had a better gauge on what the Israelites could do, or what God could do in them.
In Numbers 13, the spies were convinced that they were like grasshoppers to the giants that occupied Canaan.
Yet a few chapters later, the Moabites looked over the cliff and in every direction, the Israelites camped out on every inch of the sand that the land could not be seen by the Moabites.
In Joshua 2, the two spies went into the fortified city, Jericho, and found that they were terrified of the Israelites; God wasn't telling a lie: Jericho was theirs for the taking.
There are many instances where the Israelites underestimated what God could do through them; but not their enemies.
The enemies saw clearly; they sometimes had a better vantage point than the Israelites and tried their hardest to throw them off track. The Egyptians threw everything at the Israelites, and God still blessed them through the hardship, through the oppression.
The king of Moab paid someone to curse them, and God gave the man words of blessings to speak over the Israelites.
God can still bless you in the unexpected place and in the hard place. Your oppression and difficulties do not and cannot stop Him from doing a work in you.
When it's hard, it is not silly to believe that He can still do exceedingly, abundantly more than you can ask or imagine.
Yes, in the impossible place, in the discomfort between the rock and a hard place, God will meet you here, guide you here, help you here. He'll save you here.
Today, I delved into Exodus 1, where the Israelites settled into Egypt after a famine nearly wiped them out. In this next phase, they grew into the promise of God, fruitful and multiplying in a land that was not their own.
And the pharaoh, who did not know the Joseph who saved the nation, nor the God who blessed the Israelites, peeped this progress, noticed the fulfillment of the promise, and grew fearful. Because he did not know God, he became afraid of what God was doing in the Israelites and was convinced that their growth would be detrimental to Egypt, not realizing that he took a step towards completing the self-fulfilling prophecy when he enslaved the foreigners.
Yet, they just grew even more under the oppression. As the Egyptians watched the Israelites' multiply, the pharaoh came up with a more sinister plan to cripple the Israelites: kill off their baby boys.
All this because he saw their potential, he saw God's blessing although he knew nothing about God or His plan.
And this moment in their history wasn't the only time that the enemy had a better gauge on what the Israelites could do, or what God could do in them.
In Numbers 13, the spies were convinced that they were like grasshoppers to the giants that occupied Canaan.
Yet a few chapters later, the Moabites looked over the cliff and in every direction, the Israelites camped out on every inch of the sand that the land could not be seen by the Moabites.
In Joshua 2, the two spies went into the fortified city, Jericho, and found that they were terrified of the Israelites; God wasn't telling a lie: Jericho was theirs for the taking.
There are many instances where the Israelites underestimated what God could do through them; but not their enemies.
The enemies saw clearly; they sometimes had a better vantage point than the Israelites and tried their hardest to throw them off track. The Egyptians threw everything at the Israelites, and God still blessed them through the hardship, through the oppression.
The king of Moab paid someone to curse them, and God gave the man words of blessings to speak over the Israelites.
God can still bless you in the unexpected place and in the hard place. Your oppression and difficulties do not and cannot stop Him from doing a work in you.
When it's hard, it is not silly to believe that He can still do exceedingly, abundantly more than you can ask or imagine.
Yes, in the impossible place, in the discomfort between the rock and a hard place, God will meet you here, guide you here, help you here. He'll save you here.
The Wilderness, The Desolate Places
Wednesday, September 19, 2018
I've been reading through the Gospels the past few weeks- well to the best of my abilities. Sometimes I would stop halfway through a book because responsibilities pulled me away, but there's been a recurring subject that has been catching my eye: the desolate places.
It felt as though every chapter we would find Jesus in a desolate place, praying and resting. Before He started His ministry, the Holy Spirit led Him into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.
Jesus is not afraid of the wilderness. Time and again, we will find Him in a place of seclusion to be recharged.
But I don't think it really sunk in how much- dare I say it- how much God loves the quiet place until I skimmed through the first two verses of Luke 3.
Whenever I see a list of names in the Bible, my eyes glaze over. I am not the one to look through genealogy. If there's no story, I won't stay.
Yet this time I did- I lingered, I stayed- and I learned something.
The first two verses hold six names: Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate, Herod, Philip, Lysanias and Annas.
These aren't just any six names; these six names represented men who held power in the time right before Jesus was baptized. These men had the authority that shaped the climate, the rules of Israel. And I'm not the only one who bypassed them. God did too.
God's word didn't stay and announce itself to any of those leaders. It went over all their heads to get to John the Baptist in the wilderness.
No red tape for God. He didn't ask for permission or go through the correct channels to speak to John. If God can get to John in the desert, He can easily get to you.
God knows how to find you. He doesn't have to go through people to get to you or ask for permission. And neither do you. You don't need to be in position of power or authority to receive God's word.
No seminary necessary. No ministry required. No seat in some church committee needed.
You can meet Him on the outside. God doesn't mind.
He will meet you in the wilderness. Outside the hustle and bustle. Outside of the city. He will meet you in the quiet of your room. In the wreckage your worries left behind. In the mess, in the misery.
Our God can even meet with you in the graveyard.
God wants to meet with you- out in the margins.
The outskirts, the desolate places are not beneath Him. Even there He will be.
The only position you need is the position of your heart: are you willing to listen, to obey? If so, there He will be.
It felt as though every chapter we would find Jesus in a desolate place, praying and resting. Before He started His ministry, the Holy Spirit led Him into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.
Jesus is not afraid of the wilderness. Time and again, we will find Him in a place of seclusion to be recharged.
But I don't think it really sunk in how much- dare I say it- how much God loves the quiet place until I skimmed through the first two verses of Luke 3.
Whenever I see a list of names in the Bible, my eyes glaze over. I am not the one to look through genealogy. If there's no story, I won't stay.
Yet this time I did- I lingered, I stayed- and I learned something.
The first two verses hold six names: Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate, Herod, Philip, Lysanias and Annas.
These aren't just any six names; these six names represented men who held power in the time right before Jesus was baptized. These men had the authority that shaped the climate, the rules of Israel. And I'm not the only one who bypassed them. God did too.
God's word didn't stay and announce itself to any of those leaders. It went over all their heads to get to John the Baptist in the wilderness.
No red tape for God. He didn't ask for permission or go through the correct channels to speak to John. If God can get to John in the desert, He can easily get to you.
God knows how to find you. He doesn't have to go through people to get to you or ask for permission. And neither do you. You don't need to be in position of power or authority to receive God's word.
No seminary necessary. No ministry required. No seat in some church committee needed.
You can meet Him on the outside. God doesn't mind.
He will meet you in the wilderness. Outside the hustle and bustle. Outside of the city. He will meet you in the quiet of your room. In the wreckage your worries left behind. In the mess, in the misery.
Our God can even meet with you in the graveyard.
God wants to meet with you- out in the margins.
The outskirts, the desolate places are not beneath Him. Even there He will be.
The only position you need is the position of your heart: are you willing to listen, to obey? If so, there He will be.
Dear Forgotten One
Tuesday, July 3, 2018
You are not forgotten.
It may seem like it. Only you know how long you’ve been where you are, stuck and on repeat.
It’s easy to think nothing in your corner is moving when those outside of it speed through milestones that you haven’t reached yet, that you’re not even sure will happen in your lifetime. (Maybe in another one or maybe if you had unlimited time, but definitely not within this current timeframe.)
As time whiplashes you, I want to remind you that you are not forgotten. When eyes overlook you, rendering you invisible, remember that you are seen.
When the phone doesn’t ring, and opportunity hits up everyone else and their mamas, you still matter. You are important. No matter what is happening (or not), the world would be a different place without you.
You matter.
And your feelings matter as well, but there is a greater reality beyond what you are experiencing: God sees you, and He knows you. He knows the good plans that He has for you, and those plans, full of hope, will unfold in His timing: His good and perfect timing.
But His clock works a bit differently than ours. He lives outside the construct of time; He lives in eternity. So when you’re waiting for Him sometimes it feels as though God comes through just around the midnight hour. He slides in right before you lose that last flimsy thread of hope, yet... yet you’ll always realize He’s never late: God is always right on time.
Never early, but He won’t leave you hanging.
I know what you’re thinking: where is He though?
Well, I don’t think you need to worry about where God is. It’s not something that needs to be questioned. His location has never changed. Everything around you may fluctuate, yet the truth remains that God is with you, forever. He is working on your behalf, forever.
He will leave you never.
Don’t believe me?
In Numbers 22, while the Israelites rested from battle, a neighboring nation, Moab, has been filled with dread because the Israelites overtook the surrounding land. Balak, a Moabite, summons Balaam, a person who was able to curse and bless people, and he wanted Balaam to curse the Israelites so that he may destroy them before they overtook his home.
And God opposed Balaam every step of the way. From the moment Balaam received the Moabite’s message, God told him not to curse what He has blessed. God even used a talking donkey to deter that man from going against His chosen people.
A talking donkey!
But Balaam didn’t listen and kept it moving right to the point where he stood on the mountaintop with Balak, overlooking the Israelites who “cover[ed] the face of the earth.”
And after setting up the scene with his seven burnt offerings, the Moabite expectantly looked to Balaam. Surely, the oracle will curse the opposing nation.
He didn’t. Three times Balaam approached God, expecting a different answer, and he returned each time to say the same thing, “Bless the Israelites.” And on top of that, Balaam cursed the Moabites and everyone else who wanted to see the Israelites destroyed.
To say the least, Balak was pissed off. He offered many riches to the diviner, yet nothing changed. And the Israelites were none the wiser.
They were chilling in the valley, not knowing what was going on overhead. They were covered; they were protected. A weapon was formed, but it did not prosper because God was with them.
It may seem like nothing is happening in your world, but you have no clue what God is doing behind the scenes. In the stillness, in the quiet, God is working for your good. Even in the moments when frustration and desperation have a chokehold on you, your answer is on the way.
In Daniel 10, a vision devastated Daniel, and he didn't eat or drink anything fancy for three weeks. He didn't even lotion himself; he stayed ashy for nearly a month. And while he mourned about the vision's content, no answer came forth.
Radio silence until the 24th day (three days after he used moisturizer-- and yes that matters, I am sure of it). An angel came with an answer, but also an explanation: The Persian kingdom held him up. He would have shown up the moment that Daniel sought God's face, however, it was out of his control. Persia had to be handled. Daniel was not forgotten- the answer was in transit.
In Daniel 10, a vision devastated Daniel, and he didn't eat or drink anything fancy for three weeks. He didn't even lotion himself; he stayed ashy for nearly a month. And while he mourned about the vision's content, no answer came forth.
Radio silence until the 24th day (three days after he used moisturizer-- and yes that matters, I am sure of it). An angel came with an answer, but also an explanation: The Persian kingdom held him up. He would have shown up the moment that Daniel sought God's face, however, it was out of his control. Persia had to be handled. Daniel was not forgotten- the answer was in transit.
Don’t give in to the lie that you are forgotten, that you are unseen, that you don’t matter. The moment you turned your heart towards God, the moment you called out His name, He came running towards you. It may seem that He is slow in answering, but you can trust that the breakthrough, the opportunity is coming.
Besides how could He forget you when He gave up everything to be with you? When He etched you on the palm of His hands?
To Him, you are unforgettable.
Don’t forget that.
Perfect Conditions: Dried Up, Empty, Formless
Tuesday, June 26, 2018
One thing that I love about God is His power of resurrection, His power of creation.
In the beginning, He hovered over the unformed earth, undeterred by the chaos and darkness. In Ezekiel, He stood in a graveyard, unbothered by the dead and the decay.
God doesn’t stand far from what drives us crazy: the half-baked plans, the discarded dreams, the uncertainty, the unknown. He draws in close to the things we want to hide. God loves the mystery, the insecurities, the doubts because He knows the answer to all of these, including the fear.
He is the solution. God is the answer; it’s as simple as that.
It was never up to us alone to do what He has called us to do. The earth didn’t create light and divide night from day on its own, and neither did the Israelites revive themselves and shake off their grave clothes.
God did that.
Not once has He asked of anyone or anything to do something beyond their pay grade.
All He has asked was for us to believe Him to do what He said.
The new fledging planet could do nothing but receive His word, “Let there by light.” The cemetery had no clue that among the gravestones stood Life Himself, ready with the command that would invite living breath back into those dried bones.
In darkness, light shone through. In death, life came to reign. It didn’t make sense.
It still doesn’t have to make sense; if God’s promise did, then we wouldn’t need Him. We would just go ahead and accomplish it ourselves.
But what is hope if it’s something that we could see, if it’s something that we already have?
It is not hope, and it requires no faith. God is not in the business of building up a hopeless and faithless generation.
He’s never asked of us to do anything on our own. We have never had a desire, an expectation, a goal where He stood back to watch us struggle in our strength to completion.
He comes close to help, to set up His strength within our weaknesses.
Where are your dried bones?
God will raise them up again.
Where is your darkness?
God will light it up.
Where is your emptiness?
God will cause you to overflow in those places.
Where are you? Where are you with the resolutions of this year? Where are you in relation to your five year plan?
Wherever you may find yourself as we approach the seventh month of this year, know that God wants to pick up where you left off.
God wants to be the one to bring His word that resides in you to completion.
He can certainly do it. It doesn't matter how long your dream has been dormant. God is the God of resurrection.
It doesn't matter how fragile and shapeless your desire is. God is the God of creation.
All you have to do is believe. Trust Him and His Word.
He is both willing and able.
Burying Your Talent?
Wednesday, March 7, 2018
I just keep thinking about the servant who buried the talent that his master entrusted to him.
His excuses are on repeat in my mind:
His excuses are on repeat in my mind:
- Master is a hard man
- Master reaps where he does not sow
- Master gathers where he scattered no seed
- Fear-- the servant was scared.
He hid that one talent under a heap of justification of why he did nothing with his master's talent.
I'm standing over the gravesite of the hidden talent, and I hear, "Even here, I can still do it."
God can still do it in the graveyard of broken dreams and forsaken goals.
He can, and He did.
Let's go through the list:
- Abraham was one-hundred years old when he had Isaac. We all know Sarah's womb was defunct at the age of ninety-nine. That alone should encourage us that impossibility is not an issue for God. He is able.
- Noah had no idea how to build an ark, but God instructed him-- God gave him the blueprints to make it happen.
- Gideon hid from the Philistines, but God called him a mighty warrior, who then led an army of 300 men that defeated forces more than ten times their size.
- Because of God's grace in his life, Joseph climbed the social ladder from the prison to the palace.
- The walls of Jericho, the most fortified town of that time, came down with shouts of praise from an otherwise ill-equipped people.
- John the Baptist had no Instagram, no Facebook live feed and no Twitter following. In the desert, he just had his voice to bring about repentance in Israel, and the masses came.
Now that's just about 0.000000000000000009% of God's resume. He did so much more with the outcast and the overlooked.
And He's willing to do greater with you.
It's not complicated. Yes, it's hard, but the excuses that are holding you back, the reasons you think God cannot do it, are the very reasons why He wants to do it through you.
There is nothing (inward or outward) that can disqualify you from God's calling over your life; if there was, that would mean the cross is useless: Jesus would have died for nothing then.
But that's not the truth. His blood covers everything-- a multitude of sins and excuses.
You are free to do what He assigned you.
Even in the graveyard, under all the dirt and mess you've placed above your talent, God can and will do it here and now.
And I know that the excuses don't disappear. If they do, they come back more sinister, more warped than before, but God is not intimidated by them. Neither should you be.
If the servant was willing to not just acknowledge his justifications, but challenge them as well, those lies would have fallen away.
Maybe the Master's goodness would have been revealed to him if he took that one step. Maybe the servant would have noticed his Master's hand in places that he thought were void of the Master's workings. Maybe the fear of upsetting the Master would have gave way with the realization that remaining stagnant, living stuck pissed Him off so much more than making a mistake.
Excuses are reality until they are not.
When you take that first step you realize, "It's not as bad as I made it out to be."
Yea, you don't have the funds, but that's not your forever.
Yea, you aren't good enough now, but that's not your forever if you choose to invest in it anyway.
Yea, you have five followers, but if you keep typing, keep speaking, keep going that number can grow.
But you'll never know if you keep the talent buried; if you hide the light He's placed inside of you, the circumstances that keep you timid will not change.
What are you waiting for?
You're in the most perfect position; yes, knee deep in dirt is perfect. Water that talent with the Word of God. Feed it with your dedication and discipline. Let His light shine through it, and watch it grow.
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