Salty Zebra

  On that very day Abraham took his son Ishmael and all those born in his household or bought with his money, every male in his household, and circumcised them, as God told him. Genesis 17:23  Over the last several years, God has taught me that when I know I need to do something, I should do it right away . This started out because I might get distracted, or the action would fall to the bottom of my to-do list. These days, it has a lot more to do with memory. If I don’t do it right now, I won’t do it at all because I’ll likely not recall that I’m supposed to! Every once in a while, I really don’t want to do something and I put it off, and God keeps bringing it up to me, reminding me either internally or externally through those around me. But realistically, when I feel like God is instructing me to do something, I either stop what I’m doing and take care of it right away, or else I set a calendar or phone reminder to do it at the appropriate time if necessary. I actually jus...

  Then the LORD’s angel said to her, “Return to your mistress and submit to her authority. I will greatly multiply your descendants,” the LORD’s angel added, “so that they will be too numerous to count.”   Genesis 16:9-10  In Genesis 16, two women are highlighted: Sarai and Hagar. These two women found themselves confronted with the option to believe and obey God, or not, and they made different choices. Neither was perfect, neither did exactly as she should have, but we can learn from them both.   Sarai was Abram’s wife and had traveled with him across the known world. Presumably, she knew about the promises God had made to Abram in Genesis 12:2,7 , Genesis 13:14-16 , and Genesis 15:4 , but ten years had passed since they entered the land that God had called them to, and still she had no children. It would make perfect sense for her to determine that she couldn’t have children as she was well past the child-bearing age and had not conceived. But this is where ...

   By this time, my husband had the opportunity to see the house. In fact, the previous owners were very gracious and allowed us to have a fence installed before closing. This made it so much simpler to have kids and a dog down there! Our first visit to the house as its official owners was a quick one. It was just the kids and I since, again, my husband was busy with work. He was very possibly still on his trip to India. We went down for less than 24 hours to do a quick inventory. You see, the house had been sold to us with all its accoutrements: all the furniture, the dishes, the linens, even the paper towels and toilet paper! I wasn't sure exactly what was there, so we went down to take stock and see what we might need to bring down with us to make our first official trip comfortable.  That was a quick, but exhausting trip. I was up late going through drawers, cupboards and closets and writing it all down. How many towels? Sheets? Spoons? It was a beautiful gift as ...

  The Lord had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you.”   Genesis 12:1  This study is focusing on obedience, and Abram, later Abraham, is one of the cornerstone stories of obedience in the Bible. Chapter11 of Hebrews is referred to as the “Hall of Faith.” In it, the author catalogs highlights from the past of people who followed God in extreme situations. Obedience is the result of faith. You won’t obey someone you don’t trust. And, interestingly, obedience leads to deeper faith. When we trust God enough to do what He tells us to, and things work out in incredible ways we couldn’t have imagined, we trust God even more.   I had always remembered the story of Abraham as him being called to leave Ur, his ancestral home, but as I was reading today in Genesis 11, it was actually his father, Terah, that initially picked up his family and moved. He left Ur with the intention of going to Canaan ( Genesis...

  Our lives are lived in seasons. Some long, some short, but all of them matter and affect us in different ways. And in each of these seasons, God is present. He leads, He guides and He uses them to change and influence us. Today, I'd like to tell you about our season with the Beach House.   It started more than a quarter century ago, when we were a young family. We didn't have a lot of disposable income. I wouldn't say we were living paycheck to paycheck, but there wasn't much, if any, left over at the end of the month. Vacations weren't something we really considered. A friend from church had a house out by the Ocean and offered it to us as a place to stay for a week during the summer. I cannot tell you what a blessing this was! I LOVE being by the water. It brings me peace and joy. And being able to take my husband and son out to the beach, dig in the sand, ride in a boat, play a little putt putt golf was such a blessing. Just to relax as a family.  A dream was b...

  On that very day Noah and his sons, Shem, Ham and Japheth, together with his wife and the wives of his three sons, entered the ark.  Genesis 7:13  Today’s study focuses on Noah’s wife, though I’m not sure why. The SOAP verse above is one of only a few mentions we have of her, along with her sons’ wives. The Bible says in chapter 7 that they went into the ark, and then in a couple of verses in chapter 8 that they came out of the ark. That’s it. It doesn’t seem as though there is any more significance to it other than that the people went into the ark in pairs, male and female, as the animals did.  So, what can we learn from Noah’s wife? Odds are she didn’t say or do anything wildly against her husband’s mission, because that would likely have been recorded as it was in Job 2:9-10 . We can guess, from the lack of information otherwise, that Noah’s wife and sons supported him in his mission from God to build an ark. That must have been difficult. Noah had heard f...