Catch Up

Below are snapshots of what has captured my attention while reading. I have tried to pick one verse (sometimes I picked more) and journal my thoughts about it from each day's selection. I have mostly included the verses that highlights what I need to remember.

My faith is so weak. I am prone to wonder and forget and have the attention span of a fruit fly sometimes. So I need LOTS of reminders tacked up. In my calendar, my paper journal, on post-it notes, index cards, scraps of paper and napkins and here on my blog. Whether it is decorated with colored pens or scribbled with pencil, tapped out on a keyboard or with a broken stump of crayon, I jot His words down. His word is my breath, my bread, my life, even when I forget that or ignore it. He tells His story and my story. He tells your story and the person across the streets. The story of humanity and His hand in it is beautifully woven together page after page after page. His words changes people. I want and need His word to change me.

B90 Day 5
Exodus Chapter 9 verse 16 says
But I have raised you up (or spared you) for this very purpose, that I might show you My power and that My name might be proclaimed in all the earth.
(God speaking about why Pharaoh is alive and allowed to rule)

It truly is all about Him. All for Him, by Him and because of Him. Not always easy to live through the hard days knowing this to be true, but I ask myself wouldn't I rather live through the hard days knowing this is true than just to have to live through the hard days? Isn't it better knowing that there is a purpose and a plan and that everything is just not wildly spinning out of control? So easy for me to say this now sitting here at my table (we are in a (mostly) beautiful and easy season right now). The summer sun is streaming in the window behind me, and I am currently listening to the (mostly) happy chatter drifting from where my children are playing. But not so long ago, the days were not so carefree and the moments were hard and it felt too much. Instead of sitting at a table I was on my knees shedding tears for prayers. However I am learning that no matter what is going on around me God remains God and His purpose remains firm. The circumstances do not cause this fact to be true, they simply test it and bring me to the end of myself and shake all of the fluff off of what I believe and makes me dig deeper and listen harder and cling tighter.

B90 Day 6
Exodus 18 vs 20
Teach them the decrees and laws and show them the way to live and the duties they are to perform.

I found this to be a great parenting mission statement. Jethro, Moses' father in law helped him to clarify his purpose and his direction in leading the Israelites. I lose my direction so easily. I try to do it all and be it all and I forget my main purpose is to teach our children who God is, what He says they are to be about and the duties they are to perform each day.

B90 Day 7
Exodus 33 vs 19 & 20 and then 34 vs 5 - 7
Chapter 33 vs 19&20
And the LORD said, "I will cause all of my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my name, the LORD in your presence. I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. But He said, "you cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live."

and then He fulfills this in

Chapter 34 vs 5 - 7
Then the LORD came down in the cloud and stood there with him and proclaimed His name, the LORD. And He passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, "The LORD, The LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion, and sin. Yet He does not leave the guilty unpunished; He punishes the children and their children for the sins of the fathers to the third and fourth generation."

I love how He says He will cause all of His goodness to pass in front of Moses and then He does that and He proclaims who He is by sheathing Himself in words.

Admittedly I do not understand the end of verse 7 from chapter 34, the punishment of the father's sins reaching forth and lying on the children's backs unto the third and fourth generation. Except to say that it proves the sentence, "Like father, like son" and is maybe more of a warning for a parent than an accusation for the child. Or to make us think about the consequences of our words and actions or lack of them.  But. my thoughts aside, the end of  verse 7 stumps me.