Thankful in Times of Opposition – Part 2 of 4

If you have lost your God-given dream or never dared to have one, I’ve got good news for you. God hasn’t lost it or forgotten it. Your past failures and disappointments don’t have to hold you back from living out your destiny. God uses the positive as well as the negative experiences to shape your future.

God is not looking for flawless people but for real people willing to offer their strengths and weaknesses for His service. Perhaps Moses seemed an unlikely candidate, but God wanted him because he had become a humble man and was therefore ready for God to use. He was used mightily in signs and wonders and on such a dramatic scale. Perhaps an even greater achievement was that God used him to write the first five books of the Old Testament.

God believed in him before all of these great achievements had taken place. God could see what no one else could even imagine. And because Moses obeyed, the unimaginable happened. Yet the Israelites didn’t believe in Moses the same way God did. They didn’t fully trust him as their leader. They also didn’t trust God Almighty. How come? Wasn’t it obvious that God was someone they could trust? Wasn’t He the God of their forefathers, of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob?

Well, a long period of slavery took its toll on them. They were stripped of their identity as God’s chosen people and, for most of them, their Jewish faith had become a thing of the past. Many of them by now were following the idolatry of the Egyptians. They did so because idolatry was more tangible to them than an obscure God.

God was dealing with people who had forgotten who He was, and they needed proof in order to believe in Him again. That’s why God performed such awesome miracles in their sight. He was also demonstrating to the rest of the known world that He was the only God; there was no other god beside Him.

No matter how many times God proved Himself to them, they continued in their fear and unbelief. As you already know, because of this, almost an entire generation never inherited the land that was promised to them.

Ongoing sin in their lives, for which they never willingly repented, as well as their past slavery, caused them to see themselves as weak and powerless. They didn’t believe that they were able to make a difference in their world. Ultimately, they didn’t believe that with God they had what it took to make their lives and their futures a success.

Of the first generation that originally left Egypt, only Joshua and Caleb ever entered the Promised Land. They helped the second generation take hold of their inheritance because they had refused to succumb to fear and unbelief.

Read More

Thankful in Times of Opposition – Part 1 of 4

What was going on in the hearts and minds of the Israelites the first time they wanted to enter the Promised Land? With the exception of Joshua and Caleb, the people’s hearts were gripped with fear when they saw what stood in their way. The people of the land were mighty and God’s people felt small, so they lost confidence in themselves. They doubted Moses, and most of all, they doubted God. They had a hard time believing in others, probably because they didn’t believe in themselves.

Fear crippled them and prevented them from possessing the land by faith. Fear also kept them from experiencing God’s abundant love. Fear is the opposite of love. The two cannot coexist. Fear operates through unbelief, and love operates through faith.

It’s understandable that the people didn’t respect Moses much. They hardly knew him as a leader, and what they knew of his past hurt his reputation.

Imagine yourself living a slave’s life and one day finding out that one of your own people had been adopted by the Pharaoh’s daughter and raised as a prince. For the first forty years of his life Moses was sheltered while his fellow Hebrews suffered under the bonds of slavery. If Moses’ luxurious life didn’t make you jealous, then what happened next might make you think he was unworthy of respect.

His whole life took a dramatic turn when, in a moment of self-appointed heroism, he killed an Egyptian for beating a Hebrew. Then, when his cover was blown, he went on the run. For the next forty years, he lived as a fugitive and worked as a shepherd. From the pleasures of palace living to the harsh realities of desert dwelling, Moses not only looked, but also felt, like a failure.

Just before Moses killed the Egyptian, he knew that he was meant to do something great for God. But after another Hebrew blew his cover, he realized his zeal had been misguided and fled the scene. This incident so crushed his pride that his dream and passion died with it.

When God got hold of him forty years later, he thought God had the wrong man. He not only didn’t jump at the offer to lead the Israelites to freedom, he even declined it. Maybe you have felt like Moses. Maybe you have stopped believing in yourself. However, no matter how bad your past might seem to you, God is in the business of giving second chances.

Read More

Thankful in Times of Drudgery – Part 5 of 5

After everything the Israelites had gone through with God, they still missed out. They were stuck with old mindsets and refused to be reprogrammed. That entire first generation never made it into the Promised Land, except for the two scouts that had come back with a good report. God rewarded the two faithful scouts for having the right attitude. Those that were complaining, however, only got more misery.

Sadly, that generation had toiled their whole lives long, but had nothing to show for all their hard work. The end of their lives was as sad as the beginning. Sure, God had given them a few victories along the way, but they died without enjoying their inheritance. The Israelites never completely entered into His rest because they misunderstood what it was about. They thought it was just another one of God’s rules so they missed connecting with His heart.

Fortunately, it’s never too late to have a change of mind. The fact that they didn’t believe they could make the total transition into Kingdom thinking doesn’t mean that you can’t. So, even though we are no longer living under the Law, the Sabbath day is still a valuable part of our faith. We need a day off in the week to refuel and to stay connected with Him. However, if you have little children, they don’t miraculously become self-sufficient one day of the week so that you can just rest. They remain a full-time job. But we can choose to slow down and let go of all the other tasks clamoring for our attention.

His desire is to see us living out of His rest every day. We can achieve this by living from a place of peace rather than from a frantic frenzy. We do this when we give our cares over to Him and trust Him in every situation of our lives. We don’t have to strive in our own strength any longer.

God’s plan was that entering His rest would be a lifestyle. As you nurture a vibrant relationship in Christ, and live out of His rest, you’ll have all you need to thrive.

Read More

Thankful in Times of Drudgery – Part 2 of 5

At one point along the way, the children of Israel complained that their food lacked variety. They were fed up with manna, manna, and more manna (Num. 11:4-10). Their complaining got so bad that it turned into weeping. All the men stood in the doorways of their tents and wept bitterly. Their families who were inside their tents wept with them. That must have been quite a noise!

Of course, God was highly offended, and Moses was extremely displeased with them. If they had only asked nicely, they might have received a proper portion of meat to eat every day, but because of their bad attitude they suffered God’s wrath instead. Indeed, their complaining infuriated God so much that He sent them a plague of quail (the meat that they had requested), which lasted for an entire month. They had so much meat that it made them sick.

Thankfully, His wrath didn’t last forever. There was a point where God put things back in balance because, according to the account in Exodus (Ex. 16:12-15, 35), their daily diet consisted of a day’s worth of manna in the mornings and quail in the evenings. Interestingly, they ate manna for the entire forty years that they were kept wandering in the desert, until they entered the Promised Land.

When I consider our modern-day grocery stores, I’m amazed at the wide variety of foods available. I wonder if we really appreciate what we have. Do we realize how blessed we are? Are we thankful that we can buy almost anything we want so conveniently?

Read More

Thankful in Times of Drudgery – Part 1 of 5

Mother's Day 2008

Do you often feel weighed down, even overwhelmed, by the nitty-gritty of daily life? Does it sometimes seem as if there is nothing you can do to make the job of motherhood any better? Maybe you’re even ready to throw in the towel?

For those of you who are new to this blog, I’ve been following the lives of the Israelites in the time of Moses, mainly their time in the desert as they journeyed to the Promised Land. Life out in the desert wasn’t much fun. There were no shopping malls, no TVs, and no books or magazines to read. Life went on, and there were daily chores to be done. Of course, a few miracles and a few curses broke the monotony every now and again.

Forty years was a long time to be wandering. It was, of course, meant to be a punishment for the unbelief of the parents. Their children, however, had to go with them through this experience. There must have been hundreds of days that felt like drudgery to them. My few years spent stuck at home caring for a family felt something like that to me. Minutes dragged into hours and hours into days.

I spent most of my time trying to make the kids happy, preparing the meals, and cleaning the house. The down-side was that it was never-ending. It was a constant cycle of kids, meals, house, kids, meals, house, kids, meals, house, and on it went. There was little variety and a lot of work.

On my poetry blog Consider the Lilies, I have posted a poem for Mother's Day called "Gifted, Talented Woman." Here is one stanza from the poem: Without women there would be no children to see - There would be no you and also no me - No different cultures, no different faces, - No different colors and no different races...

Read More

Thankful in Times of Difficulty – Part 3 of 4

The Israelites’ journey to the Promised Land wasn’t as happy a one as God had intended it to be. They were supposed to travel only a few days in the wilderness, but it turned into forty years. Their stubborn and unthankful hearts caused them lots of misery along the way. The more they resisted God, the more He resisted them.

While they lived under the dictatorship of Pharaoh, they had to obey no matter what. Pharaoh cared only about building his empire on the backs of the Hebrew people. Unlike Pharaoh, God wasn’t a dictator. He also wasn’t running a democracy. He couldn’t be voted in one day and out the next, although the people certainly tried to do this. He refused to be just a passing fancy. They were stuck with Him whether they liked it or not.

You see, God had a plan for them - a plan meant for good and not for evil. That plan was to establish a new nation under Him, a theocracy. They were to experience His protection, demonstrate His love, and carry His name to the nations. What He wanted was their full devotion and loyalty as He was fully devoted and loyal to them. They would then be granted victory after victory over their enemies.

Read More

Thankful in Times of Need - Post 1 of 4

When Moses and the Israelites had to flee Egypt, how did they respond to adversity? Perhaps you have heard that story or read it several times and concluded that they were an unthankful and ungrateful people. After all, they had God performing miracles before their eyes. Why should they grumble and complain?

Actually, it’s easier to point out their faults while ignoring our own. In this series, “Thankful in Times of Need,” we’ll take a closer peek into their lives, which will offer us a greater understanding of them and, consequently, ourselves.

The Israelites were excited when they first set out from Egypt. Not only did they gain their freedom, but they won the respect of their oppressors too. God’s favor toward the Israelites was so powerful that they were able to ask the Egyptians for their gold, silver, and clothing (Ex. 12:35&36).

God gave His people a great victory that day without their having to give their husbands and sons to war. How astonished they must have felt at their swift and glorious release. However, these feelings didn’t last long. Soon they found themselves trapped: the Red Sea was in front of them, and the entire Egyptian army behind them. What now? Had God lied? Could He pretend to love them one moment and then abandon them the next?

We all know that the Israelites did make it across the Red Sea as God miraculously parted the waters and dried the ground under their feet. And God gave them another great victory when the sea collapsed on top of the Egyptian army and drowned them all.

With that problem behind them, they now faced a new challenge. On the way to the land that God had promised them, they found themselves in the desert and it wasn’t looking too promising. By their complaints, they must have concluded that the desert was not a place to keep a few million people along with their livestock even if it was for just a short trip to a place called the Promised Land.

Tweet

Read More