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Never Forsaken: With Arms Held High

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  As long as Moses held up his hands, the Israelites were winning, but whenever he lowered his hands, the Amalekites were winning. When Moses’ hands grew tired, they took a stone and put it under him and he sat on it. Aaron and Hur held his hands up – one on one side, one on the other – so that his hands remained steady till sunset.   Exodus 17:11-12  The stage is set. The Israelites are deep in the wilderness. Their camp is set. The flocks and herds are watched over. But in the distance comes the sound of something different, something they weren’t expecting. The Amalekite army was approaching, and they were on the warpath! No one knows what caused the Amalekites to attack Israel. Maybe they had heard about what happened in Egypt and were intimidated by them. Maybe they knew that the Israelites saw Canaan as their promised land, and they believed the war was on its way to them. In any case, what we do know is that they took the initiative to come out to meet the Israel...
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Never Forsaken: Our Daily Bread

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  Then the Lord said to Moses, “I will rain down bread from heaven for you. The people are to go out each day and gather enough for that day. In this way I will test them and see whether they will follow my instructions. On the sixth day they are to prepare what they bring in, and that is to be twice as much as they gather on the other days.”  Exodus 16:4-5  Manna wasn’t just provision for the Israelites, it was a test. Both the Israelites and God were being tested here. Let’s look at how.  God had led them out into the desert, why? He hadn’t taken them somewhere that they could easily access the things they needed, like flour for bread. There was no grocery store on the corner. He brought them out to the wilderness where they would be required to rely on Him. God’s provision and wisdom were being put to the test. Would He be able to provide food for a million people? Every day? History says that He did. He provided for them in a way that they had never expected,...
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Never Forsaken: Worship for Real

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  “The Lord is my strength and my defense; he has become my salvation. He is my God, and I will praise him, my father’s God, and I will exalt him.”   Exodus 15:2  Music is my heart language, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. If there isn’t music going on around me (and that’s rarely the case), there’s music in my heart. It’s not uncommon for a song to be on repeat in my mind when I wake up, or to accompany me in the night. I get the Israelite’s response to what God had done for them. Ephesians 5:19-20 feels like it was written for me, and my brothers and sisters who experience the world through music like me: “Speaking to one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing and making music in your hearts to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for each other in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.”   How do you respond in faith to what our LORD has done for you? When the Spirit quickens within you, shining a light on God’s grace and merc...
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It's That Time of Year Again

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 It's coming up to that time of year again, my annual check in with the brain tumor center. This year, as I prepare for my visit, I thought I'd walk you through what it's like. They tell me that rehearsing the scene is helpful, so you get to do it with me! We get going really early in the morning. They typically have me do my MRI first thing so that the imaging will be ready in time for my appointment with the doctor. Traffic at that time of day is terrible, often 2-3 hours for a 35-mile commute, and my husband is a "five minutes early is ten minutes late" kind of guy, but on steroids. So, for an 8am appointment, it's common that we will leave around 5-5:30am. Much of the commute will be stop-and-go, but odds are we'll get there more than an hour early anyways. We do a lot of early! I guess that's better than late though.  We circle downward into a parking garage. Getting there so early, we can often get a spot on the highest floor, but sometimes we...
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Never Forsaken: Who's Watching Over You?

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This is a painting that lived in my Grandma's bedroom when I was growing up. I loved laying in her bed and looking at it, wondering at how God sends His angels to watch over us. Now that my Grandma has gone on to be with Jesus, this painting lives in my house. I pray that my guests are similarly encouraged by it.   But the Israelites went through the sea on dry ground, with a wall of water on their right and on their left. That day the Lord saved Israel from the hands of the Egyptians, and Israel saw the Egyptians lying dead on the shore.  Exodus 14:29-30  The Israelites were quick to follow Moses out of Egypt, plundering their Egyptian neighbors along the way, and they were equally quick to turn on Moses and blame him when things looked rough, when they were hemmed in with the sea before them and the Egyptian army behind them. Equally, Pharaoh was quick to shoo the Israelites out of his country after the plague of the firstborn, wanting to be rid of them and the destru...
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Never Forsaken: Resetting the Leaven in Our Life

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 On that day tell your son, ‘I do this because of what the Lord did for me when I came out of Egypt.’ This observance will be for you like a sign on your hand and a reminder on your forehead that this law of the Lord is to be on your lips. For the Lord brought you out of Egypt with his mighty hand.  Exodus 13:8-9  For a long time, I enjoyed the benefits of sourdough in my kitchen. I had a starter that I fed regularly, and I used it for all manner of bread products from pancakes to sandwich bread. I learned a lot during that season that informs how I see the directive God gives in Exodus 13 . Sourdough isn’t like commercial, packaged yeast. It is a living, microbial culture. It takes on the characteristics of the local area, from your kitchen to your backyard. Over time, it can mutate and evolve into something quite different from where it started, but thankfully, there will always be wild yeasts and bacteria in the air that can start it anew.  In case you didn’t ...
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Never Forsaken: He's With Us While We Wait

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  The LORD gave the people favor in the sight of the Egyptians, and they gave them whatever they wanted, and so they plundered Egypt.   Exodus 12:36  The Israelites had a very long season of waiting before they saw the fulfillment of the promise of God to bring them out of Egypt. I wonder if they knew what God had said to Abraham back in Genesis 15:13 ? Evidently someone had been keeping track of how long they had been there at least because they knew, in Exodus 12:41 , that they had been in Egypt for exactly 430 years to the day. I wonder what this waiting was like. If you were part of the group that was in the 200-300 year range, you might know that God’s deliverance wouldn’t happen in your lifetime because it would be at least 400 years. But that group that was approaching the 400-year mark, they probably got antsy. Perhaps this was why Moses had the impression as a younger man that he was supposed to be the deliverer of his people. But, even for them, it was a long ...
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