Salty Zebra

  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 ...

  “On that same night I will pass through Egypt and strike down every firstborn of both people and animals, and I will bring judgement on all the gods of Egypt. I am the Lord. The blood will be a sign for you on the houses where you are, and when I see the blood, I will pass over you. No destructive plague will touch you when I strike Egypt.   Exodus 12:12-13  Today we read about the observation of the first Passover. It was thus named because the LORD passed over the homes of the Israelites and preserved them from the plague of the death of the first born because of the testifying blood they had placed on the two doorposts and the lintel of the house they were in ( Exodus12:27 ). I love how, when God was describing the observance of this time, He told them what they would be doing in the future, after they had been freed from slavery in Egypt, but He told them while they were still there. What a beautiful gift!   On the fourteenth day of the month, they were t...

  Then the Lord said to Moses, “Go to Pharaoh, for I have hardened his heart and the hearts of his officials so that I may perform these signs of mine among them that you may tell your children and grandchildren how I dealt harshly with the Egyptians and how I performed my signs among them, and that you may know that I am the Lord.”   Exodus 10:1-2  Today in our reading ( Exodus 8 -10, yep three whole chapters), we look at the plagues God brought upon Egypt. God is not simple or basic. There is not one reason that He did what He did here, or one reason why He does anything, but one of the reasons He brought the plagues on Egypt was so that the Egyptians would know that He is the LORD.   Why does God allow trouble to come into our lives? Think about it. When things are going well, when life is easy, how often are you drawn to God? How easy is it for you to recognize your need for Him or His power at work around you? No, it is when life gets hard, when bad things ...

  Moses and Aaron did just as the Lord had commanded. He raised his staff in the presence of Pharaoh and his officials and struck the water of the Nile, and all the water was changed into blood.   Exodus 7:20  In February of 2023, I was in a desperate place. I had dealt with migraines for years, but they were getting ridiculous. I got regular migraines, a few a month, but Starting February 21 st of 2021 I had a migraine that lasted over a month. This was terrible, I cannot tell you how awful it was because unless you have experienced something like a migraine and had it last for days and weeks on end you can’t begin to imagine it. But then, in 2022, it was even worse. Around the same time of year, I got another migraine that decided to hold on. And it held on, and it held on, and it held on. I tried a myriad of different medicines. I went all the way to Seattle multiple times a week for migraine infusions. I lived in the dark, with the lights dimmed and the curtains dr...

This image reminded me of Elijah's cloud I write about below “Therefore, say to the Israelites: ‘I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians. I will free you from being slaves to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with mighty acts of judgment. I will take you as my own people, and I will be your God. Then you will know that I am the Lord your God, who brought you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians.’”   Exodus 6:6-7  How do you react when things don’t go as you expected, when God’s timing is not the same as your own? How do you dwell in the waiting place? I wrote about this last April and then again earlier this year . It’s something we can all identify with and will likely experience more than once in our lives. Lots of people in Biblical history found themselves here and engaged with it in different ways.   The first person who came to mind for me today was Abraham. When he was middle aged (ok, he was 75 a...

  The Lord said to Moses, “when you return to Egypt, see that you perform before Pharaoh all the wonders I have given you the power to do. But I will harden his heart so that he will not let the people go.   Exodus 4:21  Take another look at the verse for today above. It’s Moses’ commissioning statement. He is being sent and told that he will not be smoothly successful. He will face opposition, but that doesn’t negate God’s directions, say that Moses heard wrong, or that he’s not doing what he was supposed to. God is telling Moses that trouble will come, but God has still sent him and is still with him. That’s all Moses needed to be successful in the face of impossibility, and it’s all we need too.   We know the story. Moses goes back to Egypt and he and Aaron go before Pharaoh, performing signs and wonders, and Pharaoh refuses to do what he is asked to do, he refuses to let God’s people go. The thing that’s interesting about today’s text is that Moses knew this ...

  Moses said to the Lord, “Pardon your servant, Lord. I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since you have spoken to your servant. I am slow of speech and tongue.”   Exodus 4:10  In today’s reading ( Exodus 3:19 -4:17), we return to the conversation between Moses and God in the wilderness at the burning bush. Let’s pause there a moment though and not read over the situation, accepting it as a simple, well-known story. Moses had a full-on, recorded conversation with God. Now, I talk to God a lot, and often I feel like I hear from Him. Very occasionally I even feel like I have a bit of a back and forth with Him where I say, “but this…” and He points something out to me. But I have NEVER had a full-on conversation with Him where He spoke to me so clearly and specifically as this. I’d venture to say that most of us haven’t. So, truly, this story is incredible in many more ways than we may have considered. It wasn’t just the miracle of the burning bush, but eve...

  Image credit: Gemini and me God said to Moses, “I AM who I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’”   Exodus 3:14  In today’s passage ( Exodus 3:1-17 ), Moses encounters God in the burning bush in the desert. I love how God puts things together perfectly, and today’s passage was no exception. Upon encountering God, Moses asks two questions: Who am I and who are You?   Yesterday we looked at Moses’ fall from grace in his own eyes. He went from the high and mighty, self-assumed deliverer of his people to a fugitive, murderer, shepherd – the lowest of the low. This was a work God had to do in his heart to prepare Moses for the tasks ahead of him. The fact that Moses asked the first question he did is a testimony to this truth. Instead of telling God, “You’ve come to the right man! I’ll do great at this!” Moses asks God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?” He recognizes that he is not w...

Image credit: Gemini and me When Pharaoh heard of this, he tried to kill Moses, but Moses fled from Pharaoh and went to live in Midian, where he sat down by a well.   Exodus 2:15  I wonder about Moses’ early life, the first forty years. Both of Moses’ mothers knew he was special and that God had shown favor to him, preserving him from the hand and edict of Pharoah. He was raised as a prince of Egypt. While it’s not explicitly laid out in the Bible that Moses was taught to see himself as Israel’s deliverer, somehow when he had come of age, about 40 years old, he had come to that understanding as Acts 7:23-25 tells us that Moses killed the Egyptian thinking that this would show his people that God was using him to rescue them. While it was true that God had miraculously preserved Moses’ life as a baby and destined him to be the deliverer of his people, he wasn’t quite ready to do that yet.   Moses had to be prepared in his early years in Pharoah’s court. He came to kno...

Image credit: Gemini and me When the child grew older, she took him to Pharaoh’s daughter and he became her son. She named him Moses, saying, “I drew him out of the water.”    Exodus 2:10  Throughout history, women have been overlooked, oppressed, kept lower – even just a little lower – than men. We have fought for our place in society. The women’s suffrage movement for example, beginning in the latter half of the 1800s and led by people like Susan B. Anthony, worked tirelessly for more than seventy years to secure women the right to vote in America. But this societal placement has not kept women from being crucial factors in the history of the world. Yes, a few women have risen to power, ruling and leading nations, like Cleopatra, Queen Victoria, and Joan of Arc, but much more frequently it is the common women, the housewives and midwives among us who play a much more pivotal role. Today’s story ( Exodus 1:15-2:10 )– coming straight from the words of scripture – highli...

Image credit: Gemini and me but the Israelites were exceedingly fruitful; they multiplied greatly, increased in numbers and became so numerous that the land was filled with them. Then a new king, to whom Joseph meant nothing, came to power in Egypt. Exodus 1:7-8  God is a good and just God. When Abraham had journeyed to the land of Canaan, God knew what the people of the land; the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites, Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaites, Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites and Jebusites would do and what they would become, but they hadn’t become that yet. He knew their great-great-great grandchildren would be wicked and awful, even more than Sodom and Gomorrah in Abraham’s day, but they weren’t there yet. Even though God knows what will happen, He still give us the benefit of living it out. If He dealt with us ahead of time, don’t you think we’d wonder if it really would have come out the way He said it would? God is good and just. He didn’t punish the people of Canaan in ...

Image Credit: Love God Greatly  I don't know about you, but I am NOT a fan of this whole three-week break between studies. I think I'll need to pick out a book to go through for the next break. But, for now, I'm very, very ready for this next study! In Never Forsaken  we'll be journeying with the Israelites through the wilderness and seeing what lessons God has to teach us through the book of Exodus. We'll take a long look into Moses' life and ministry, and I am certain that God will be showing us how it relates to our life today as well.   Follow along with me here at the Salty Zebra Blog, or join in on the fun! You can grab your study materials for free on your phone with the Love God Greatly App  or you can purchase the digital version of the study here . If you're a paper book person you'll have to wait a minute for shipping, but you can grab the study on Amazon  and get it in a couple of days. I would also strongly encourage you to join Love God Gre...

 I have a condition called foot drop. It comes about when there is an impingement, or pressure, on the nerve somewhere between my brain and my foot. It causes my foot to periodically, and unexpectedly, not lift my toe up all the way when I'm walking. When I am wearing just socks, this usually doesn't cause much of a problem, but when I am wearing shoes, it causes me to trip over my own feet.  Historically, when this happens, I feel really dumb how foolish am I that I can't even pick up my feet right when I'm walking? But my doctor, recently, taught me that this condition is inherent in my system. No matter how much my brain tells my foot to pick up my toe, my foot is not getting the message. I could look at my foot the whole time I'm walking and tell my foot with every step to pick up my toe, and I would still not do it every once in a while. Now, perhaps this is because my foot doesn't have ears to hear my mouth speaking, but that's what nerves are for. And...

   I have a couple of people in my life that ask me about the acronyms I use sometimes, so just to clarify, ICYMI stands for In Case You Missed It, which is exactly what today's post is about. Today I will look back on the last six weeks of studying God's wisdom, something I have been very much looking forward to. Sometimes these wrap up posts are a bit of a chore, but this time I have so enjoyed the study that I am excited about looking back on it and remembering all that God has spoken to my heart!  The first week of our study we focused on God's wisdom for our relationships and family. Our first day focused on the importance of balancing truth and mercy , something we are not prone to doing on our own. Next, we looked at how the relationships in our lives keep us sharp and how important it is to surround ourselves with people who are not entirely like-minded. When we live in those relationships though, ones where we may not feel the same way about everything, it's s...