I am using One Year Bible Online for my daily Bible study. For today, One Year Bible Online links here. I have found that by writing this daily blog of what I see when I read these scriptures, I get more out of them. I hope that by posting these ruminations others may get some benefit as well. If you have any thoughts or comments regarding these verses or what I have written about them, please post them. I hope that the Spirit is moving in others through these posts as the Spirit has definitely been convicting me.
When Moses became a grown man, he went out to watch his people, the Hebrews, at their labors. While there, Moses saw and Egyptian beating a Hebrew. carefully checking that there were no witnesses, Moses killed the Egyptian and hid his body. The following day, Moses saw one Hebrew man beating another. Moses chided him for hitting his fellow Hebrew. The man replied by asking Moses if he was going to kill him as he had the Egyptian. Moses became fearful that what he had done had become known and indeed it had. Moses fled from those Pharaoh sent to execute him. In a story vaguely reminiscent of the story of how Abraham’s servant found Rebekah to become Isaac’s wife, Moses meets a Midianite priest. After fleeing Egypt, Moses stopped and sat by a well. While he was there the seven daughters of a priest of Midian came to water their sheep. However some other shepherds drove them away from the water. Moses got up, rescued the daughters and watered their sheep. While the story does not make much of this these two accounts (killing the Egyptian and rescuing the priest’s daughters) suggest that Moses was not a good man to cross and that he had a sense of justice. The priest invited Moses to stay with him and in time gave Moses one of his daughters to be his wife.
Years went by and the Israelites continued in their slavery and suffering. They cried out to God for deliverance and God heard their cries. One day when Moses was tending his father-in-law’s flocks, God appeared to Moses in flames of fire within a bush. When Moses saw that the bush was on fire, but was not consumed by the fire, he approached to investigate. As he approached the bush, God called out his name. Moses responded, “Here I am.” God then identified Himself to Moses as the God of Moses’ father and the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. This caused Moses to hide his face because he was afraid to look at God. God then tells Moses that He has seen the misery of His people and heard them crying out to Him. Now God was sending Moses to Pharaoh to bring His people out of Egypt.
Moses’ response to God’s instruction was to question how he could accomplish this task. Moses wanted to know who he was that God thought he could do it? He’d tried once to help the Hebrews in Egypt, failed and been forced to go into exile. He’d built a life for himself outside of Egypt, now God wanted him to go back to the scene of his previous failure. What was going to be different this time? God’s answer was that He would be with Moses this time. To which Moses replied, “Well, when people ask me who You are, what do I tell them?” God answered this question as well, and it is clear (to me anyway) from His answer that Moses was not just asking what he should tell people about the God who had sent him, Moses was asking, “And who are you?” God’s answer was, “I am who I am.” God then instructs Moses to tell the Israelites that he has been sent by the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. God further instructed Moses to go before Pharaoh and request permission to take a three-day journey into the wilderness to offer sacrifices to God. God told Moses that Pharaoh would refuse, but that God would not only compel Pharaoh to let the Israelites leave Egypt, the people of Egypt would give much of value so that when they left Egypt it would be as if they had plundered Egypt.
How often when God directs us to do something do we respond as Moses did? I know that I do. All too often I respond with, “I tried and it didn’t work. Why would it work if I tried a second time?” All too often, I look at a task that God has set before me and say, “I don’t have what it takes.” God’s answer to that is, “I am who I am and I will be with you.” The first step to serving God is doing as Moses did, when God calls we need to answer, “Here I am.” There are still going to be times when we ask God, “How can I do that?” when He tells us what He wants us to do, but He promises that He is not sending us out alone. He will be with us. The one who is “I am who I am” and who is “I will be what I will be” will walk with us when He sends us out to do His will.
Yesterday’s passage concluded with the Mount of Transfiguration story, which I did not cover in my devotional. Today begins as Jesus comes down from the mountain and rejoins the bulk of His disciples. When Jesus got to the crowd that was waiting for Him a man approached Him requesting Jesus heal his son, whom he had brought to the disciples but they were unable to heal him. Jesus expressed frustration over the unbelief of those around Him, then He healed the boy. I believe that Jesus’ frustration was directed at His disciples, not the father of the boy or the other people bringing the sick to Him for healing. This seems to be supported by Jesus’ answer when the disciples ask why they could not heal the boy. Jesus tells them that they had too little faith. He goes on to tell them that if they have faith as small as a mustard seed they could say to the mountain, “Move from here to there” and it would move. I believe that part of how that works is that if we truly believe that it is God’s will that the mountain move from one place to another, we will not wait for it to move. We will start moving it, even if we have to take a shovel and start filling a wheelbarrow. I am not saying that the mountain will not be moved by a miracle. I am saying that if we have faith that God’s purpose in this world will be served by that mountain being moved, we won’t wait for the miracle. We will do what we can, starting now, no matter how futile that effort may seem. How often do I frustrate Jesus by my lack of faith? How often do I fail to act because I do not believe I can make a difference? Am I willing to act to accomplish God’s will, even when I know that my efforts are insufficient to the task? The fact is that my efforts are always insufficient to the task, but God does not expect me to accomplish it by my own efforts.
This is the psalm Jesus alluded to when He cried out “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?” while He was being crucified. There are other references to this psalm in the Gospel accounts of the crucifixion. It is my understanding that when a first century rabbi quoted the first line of a passage, they were referencing the entire passage. So, when Jesus cried out “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?” from the cross He was, in essence, crying out the entirety of psalm 22.
Today’s portion of the psalm is one of utter despair. The psalmist references being mocked and tortured, suffering pain and humiliation. He tells us that people mocked him for his trust in God. In all of the suffering the psalmist references in today’s passage, he still acknowledges that God made and formed him from his very birth and that he will continue to worship God. Am I prepared to remain dedicated to God in the face of mockery and suffering?
The writer advises us to stay away from adulterous relationships or we will lose our honor and likely all that we have worked for will come to naught. Adulterous relationships make one susceptible to many diseases and one will likely regret them later in life.