An Unexpected Word

What I love about the Word of God is that the best insights can be drawn from the most unexpected places, especially when you are sensative to the voice of God. The place in the Bible where I think most modern day Christians exect to draw insight is from the New Testament and even more from the Epistles as opposed to the Gospels. This has been true quite often in my life. Obviously there is nothing at all wrong with drawing wisdom from Paul's or others letters, afterall they were challenging and encouraging what was to become the modern Church. What's just awesome though is that there is so much to be learned from "The Beginning." The Old Testament. God can speak to us volumes of wisdom by just opening His Word, if only we are sensative the Spirit's lead.

Here's how I ended up inspired by Exodus-- the most unlikely of books, for me. I was recently challenged to fast my Friends habit (if you are unfamiliar with my Friends habit, see post "Chandler, Monical, Joey, Phoebe, Rachel, Ross") Accepting the challenge, believing that it was a confirmation for a Holy Spirit stir that I already had, I pulled my recently purchased, "Believing God" by Beth Moore, off the shelf and began reading. The first chapter is dedicated to discovering our personal Promised Land, which Beth Moore believes (and I happen to agree) existes for each individual person. I was inspired to read about the original Promised Land that God gave to the Isrealites by way of Moses' divine leadership.

I have read Exodus before, notebly in my Pentateuch class at Johnson Bible College (which incidently, Kristen and I were just reminscing about--recalling our attempt at osmosis [sleeping with our heads on our Bibles] in order to get through the class). I've never noticed how many modern day lessons there are to be learned about God's soveriegnty-- and I've only read the first 2 chapters. I'm eager to continue through the Isrealites journey to the Promised Land.

The first considerable insight that I had was when Moses, who should have been killed according to Pharoah's current law and rule, was saved and actually returned to his mother for a time. I believe that this was God's divine gift to her for being obedient to Him and not succombing to her fear of the consequence. That in and of itself is layered with wisdom.

The next insight, I certainly don't claim as my own original idea, but credit the footnotes of my Life App Bible. I never would have considered the amount of courage that it took for the Hebrew woman and the Princess (Pharoah's daughter) to come together to save this baby boy. Courage on behalf of the Princess to interact with someone considered a slave and even more courage on behalf of Miriam, the Hebrew girl, to suggest something that is life sustaining for a baby boy to a blood relative of the one who made the law that he should be killed. The life application here is, "Don't let the fear of what might happen cause you to miss an opportunity. Be alert for the opportunities God gives you and take full advantage of them."

Again, I will say, this insight is layers deep with wisdom for me.