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Monday March 10th

3/10/2014

1 Comment

 
Monday, March 10 — Psalm 34:19-22, Exodus 15:22-16:36; Matthew 22:23-40

CLICK HERE FOR THE READINGS

S (Scripture): Exodus 16:2-5
2 There, too, the whole community of Israel complained about Moses and Aaron. 3 “If only the Lord had killed us back in Egypt,” they moaned. “There we sat around pots filled with meat and ate all the bread we wanted. But now you have brought us into this wilderness to starve us all to death.”

4 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Look, I’m going to rain down food from heaven for you. Each day the people can go out and pick up as much food as they need for that day. I will test them in this to see whether or not they will follow my instructions. 5 On the sixth day they will gather food, and when they prepare it, there will be twice as much as usual.”

O (Observation): The Israelites are willing to sacrifice their unknown future of promised land for a known life of slavery.

A (Application):
As the people complain against God, they want to see what God is leading them into because it appears their unknown future might look worse than the already known slavery. Heck they even wished the Lord would have killed them.  It is difficult to trust God sometimes.  Yesterday, St. Mark's had a difficult discussion of changing our Sunday morning worship times in order that we might combine our two worship services for future growth. Since that growth is unknown, many people expressed their anxiety and want and desire to stay with the known rather than trust that God is leading this process.  Much like the Israelites before them it is human nature to prefer the known over the unknown. But trust in God is not always seeing for the sake a believing but believing for the sake of seeing.  If God is truly leading God will provide vision for our future together.  It just might not be what we think it should or how we might get there (40 years?...really?).

P (Prayer): Lord, we trust in your word of promise. Continue to lead us even through our mistrust and inability to see our future that you are providing.

1 Comment
Becky Fetters link
3/11/2014 01:01:16 am

Ha! Great minds think alike... For your perusal...

S:Exodus 16:2-3
2 The whole congregation of the Israelites complained against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness. 3 The Israelites said to them, “If only we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the fleshpots and ate our fill of bread; for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.” (NRSV)

O: As they continue their journey into an unknown future, the people of Israel complain and look to the known past with longing.

A: Not too long into their journey, it seems the Israelites have forgotten everything that has gone before in the not distant past: the plagues that finally convinced Pharaoh to let them go (plagues that totally passed them by), the way the sea parted to let them cross on dry land and then drowned their pursuers, the water that suddenly became sweet... and now they complain again, "painting pictures of Egypt" as the song goes (or at least that's where I know that phrase from), reminiscing about how good they had it, plenty to eat, forgetting the slavery thing. How easy it is to look to the past through rose- colored glasses, forgetting that it was really not that good. But we often prefer the past that we know to what lies ahead. There is safety and comfort in what we can predict, and it's very human of us to think that would be better than the future God is leading us into. We see it in individual lives and in the lives of congregations. It's the d2 desire to race back to d1 on the square. New is scary, hard, out of our control. Yet God is in control and will lead us through the scary if we'll let him. Ultimately, God has something better in mind.

P: God, give us courage to keep trusting, even as you lead us through wilderness times. Help us to look to your future instead of dwelling on our past. Amen.

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