Sunday, March 10, 2024

40 moves after leaving Rameses


Yahweh instructed Moses to record the stages of their journey.  In Numbers 33:6-48, there are forty moves recorded after leaving Rameses after the Passover.  That is an average of one move per year.

I'm still savoring the end of the book of Exodus:

Exodus 40:36‭-‬38 NIV
In all the travels of the Israelites, whenever the cloud lifted from above the tabernacle, they would set out; but if the cloud did not lift, they did not set out—until the day it lifted. So the cloud of [Yahweh] was over the tabernacle by day, and fire was in the cloud by night, in the sight of all the Israelites during all their travels.

They saw the cloud of Yahweh lift forty times, and they followed forty times.

Father, I want to watch you and follow you.  Holy Spirit, I want to go with you and keep in step with you.  Please calibrate my senses to hone in on your presence and track you.  I love you.

Thursday, March 7, 2024

Water, Purification

Coincidentally, or maybe divinely orchestratedly, I attended two water conferences this week, and I read Numbers 19-20 in my daily reading (water of cleansing and water from the rock, respectively) earlier this week.

On the two flights yesterday, I read the first half of the book, In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day, and Chapter 3 about fear challenged me to think about how I fear failure.  And, as a recovering perfectionist, I struggle with categorizing anything I do that falls short of perfection as failure.  Thus, I struggle with considering myself a failure, categorically.  I want to be freed from this mindset so that I can be more impactful at helping provide safe drinking water to people around the world.

Father, deliver me from perfectionism.  Perfectionism is not the mind of Christ.  I break agreement with perfectionism.  I break agreement with thinking of myself as a failure.  I take courage in knowing that you are orchestrating my advancements and victories.  I love you.

Saturday, March 2, 2024

Faithfulness

My word for this year is faithfulness.

Galatians 5:22‭-‬25 NIV
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.

I've been meditating on how faithful our Father is to us.

Father, I want to be faithful to you and faithful like you.  Please deliver me from trying to please people.  I love you.

Wednesday, February 7, 2024

Living in paradise

The Kingdom of Light is full of peace.  It is paradise.  

Every day can be paradise if we allow His light, life, love, joy, peace, .... to flow through us.

Through me, others will taste and see that Yahweh is good because His goodness will overflow through me.

Father, thank you for bringing me into the abundant zoe life.  Jesus, you are the King of Shalom.  Holy Spirit, may the people around me know that paradise is real because of my life.  May they see your face in mine.  I love you.

Monday, January 29, 2024

Perspective on adverse conditions

Job 31:35. NIV
"Oh, that I had someone to hear me! I sign now my defense—let the Almighty answer me; let my accuser put his indictment in writing.

Our enemy, the accuser, tries to convince us that our Father is the bad guy, that He is the accuser.  The accuser wants us to blame our Father for our adverse conditions, and the accuser wants us to think that our Father is indifferent to our pain and cries for help.

Job's first three "friends" thought Job was guilty, and Elihu argues that since God controls the weather and we can't, God would not listen to humans.  In one sense, we have no leverage against God to make Him listen to us and answer us, but we learn from David that our Father is compassionate towards us:

Psalms 8:3‭-‬4 NIV
When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them?

Our Father created us to abide with us and love us; we are objects of his affection. So we should show compassion, mercy, and grace to all humans, especially those who are experiencing adversity.

Father, you are kind, loving, merciful, and full of grace toward us.  Father, you sent Jesus because you love the whole world.  You cause it to rain on the just, as well as the unjust.  Jesus, you showed the Father's affection through beholding and healing people who were hurt.  Holy Spirit, please help me defend the Father's reputation against the accusations of the enemy.  I love you.

Friday, January 26, 2024

Yearning

Job 19:25‭-‬27 NIV
I know that my redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand on the earth. And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God; I myself will see him with my own eyes—I, and not another. How my heart yearns within me!

There are so many things in this world for which people yearn.  But none of them will fulfill; nothing will ultimately satisfy except meeting God face to face.

I spend too much of my time thinking about work.

I'm reminded of the lyrics from Shane & Shane's song, Yearn:
Lord I want to yearn for You
I want to burn with passion
Over You and only You

Father, you are the only one worth yearning for.  I want to have a singular devotion to you that is motivated by a desire to know you and love you, in response to your great love.  Holy Spirit, please teach me.  I love you.

Wednesday, January 10, 2024

Yahweh is the reference for time

I'm reading the Bible in chronological order this year.

I've been contemplating the six days of creation.  I previously subscribed to the "young earth" perspective (i.e., that the earth was formed in six literal 24-hr days), but a number of years ago, I relaxed that position because the Hebrew word for "day" in Genesis 1 could also mean "age".  I think it is much more important to focus on the fact that Yahweh is the creator than exactly how much time it took based on Gen 1.

It occured to me over the past couple of days that the tricky point about 24-hr day versus "age" is that Yahweh created light on the first day, and He documented evening and morning in that first day.  But He did not create the sun until the fourth day.

So, what was the source of light on days 1 through 3? How could there be evening and morning on the first three days without the rising and setting of the sun?

After a week and a half of pondering, I eventually concluded that Yahweh is the reference for time.  He determines what a day is.

Father, you are the keeper of time.  You are eternal.  From my perspective within time, you are infinite in both directions of time; but actually, you are outside of time.  Timeless.  Teach me to number my days.  Jesus only had three years of ministry.  May my life be lived to the fullest.  I love you.