Who Is Your Aaron?

 Exodus 7:6 “Moses and Aaron did just as the LORD commanded them.”

 ‘You don’t have to do this alone.’  This is God’s message to Moses and every leader commissioned by God. When God commissions Moses to lead the people, all Moses can focus on is that he is  ‘slow of speech and tongue,’ that he speaks ‘with faltering lips.’ (Exodus 4:10, 6:30)

Moses doesn’t seem like the ideal choice to lead God’s people to freedom.  But God chose Moses. That’s all that matters.   When Moses acknowledges his need for help, God responds. God appoints Aaron, his older brother, as Moses’ prophet. By themselves neither one would have succeeded in leading the Exodus. But if they listen to God, trust God, work together, they cannot fail.

 What work is God asking you to do?  You don’t need to do it alone. In fact, wise leaders never try to do it alone.

 Ask God to supply a partner to help you do that work for which you are not especially gifted.

 Doing God’s work isn’t supposed to be easy, but it is essential. Good leaders find partners who together with them will be able to do just as the LORD commands.

The Faith of a Mother

 Exodus 2:3 “But when she could hide him no longer, she got a papyrus basket for him and coated it with tar and pitch. Then she placed the child in it and put it among the reeds along the bank of the Nile.”

 Moses would die unless she acted now. Jochebed, his mother, desperate to avoid the fate of Pharaoh’s order that all Hebrew boys be thrown in the Nile at birth, knew an act of intense faith was required.

 Jochebed knew the God of the Hebrews to be a God who cared for her ancestors, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob. But where was God now? Would God not save her son?

 The key to the survival of Moses, who would lead God’s people to freedom, was the radical faith of his mother. She grasped the real meaning of ‘let go and let God.’ That is a trite saying until you must make the decision to place your son in a basket, releasing him into the river, waiting to see what happens.

 When the solution to your deepest concerns is beyond your control, place the problem in basket and wait to see what happens.

 Life-giving faith allows God to be God.

"When You Hit the Bottom"

 Genesis 50:20-21a “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives. So then, don’t be afraid.”

 Your family rejects you when you reveal who you really are. Your boss fires you to settle a score. The jury finds you guilty because of your skin color.

 You can name the time life threw you into the pit, leaving you for dead. Joseph could. His brothers threw him into a cistern to die. It wasn’t fair. It was evil.

 Where is God when we find ourselves in the bottom of the cistern, victims of injustice? Does God forget about us?  When we hit bottom, we can give up on God;  conclude that God is not in control, that God is an absentee landlord.

 Or we start to pray for God to do what only God can do when evil assails us.

God didn’t throw Joseph into the well. Why didn’t God stop the evil?  The answer can take a lifetime to discover.

 God is not the author of evil. But God does turn human evil into good outcomes.

 There is a Rescue Plan. And it is good.

"God, Where Are You?"

 Genesis 28:16-17 “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I was not aware of it.”

 Jacob found God on some desolated roadside. Sleeping, he dreamt of the stairway to heaven. Waking, he realized that God was in the place where he rested. His pillow became an altar to God. Bethel.

 God is far above the earth we travel. True enough. But God is also alongside the paths of our journeys. Stop to listen for God and God’s presence will be revealed.

 You cannot run so far as to be beyond God’s vision. You cannot go so deep as to be out of God’s grasp. If your life is a game of hide and seek from God, then know God always wins.

 When God seems distant, pray for God to disclose his presence. In the hospital room; in the coffee shop; in the office cubicle or factory floor; at the graveside of a loved one; surely the Lord is in that place.

 May your prayers for God’s presence in the place you dwell lead you to declare,

 “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven.”

 

From 'Go' to 'Went'

 Genesis 12:1 The Lord had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you.”

 Abram and his wife, Sarai, begin their journey after listening to God.

 Listening to God asks them to decide whether to stay in a place of predictability and comfort or to go on journey to a place only God knows.

 Is God inviting you to begin a journey into a land of blessing?

 First, listen for God to speak. Read God’s Word. Pray often. Worshiping God in community. So your ears become attuned to God’s voice.

 Second, when God say ‘go’, you must actually move, in faith, trusting that God knows the way to your place of blessing and that you do not need to know it.

 “So Abram went….” (v. 4)

 This is the most important part of any journey, and the most difficult, from God’s ‘go’ to your ‘went.’ Why did Abram and Sarai go with God? They had faith that God would never take them on a journey to a dead end.

 When your faith conquers your fear, you will see the land of promise God has prepared for you.