Salty Zebra

  “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...

 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...

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...

 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 ...

  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 ...