Yesterday, my fourth grandchild was born reminding me of one of the reasons I began writing. One of my motives was to simply let my children’s children and their children know who I was. Even though I knew my grandparents, (and even one set of great grandparents), I really didn’t know them, at least not as I would have liked. I have found myself wishing that I knew how my family thought – to have been able to read some of their letters and listen in on more of their conversations.  I would have truly loved to know their dreams and their prayers. I would have liked to know what had broken their hearts and what had helped them to heal. These are the things that reveal who a person really is. My inquiries have yielded some of the where’s and the what’s but I wanted to know more of the why’s. So…Dear Grandson, today’s words are for you and yours……

I am currently being recruited to write an adult teaching curriculum for a local church. I am not sure if they know how totally unqualified I am. The users of this curriculum are likely more biblically literate than I am. Just because a person generates a 1000 words or so a day of devotional thoughts does not necessarily qualify them as a teacher. Most teachers are very dedicated to supporting their assertions of truth with study while I am mostly supporting my assertions of truth with my life. (For all I know that idea a seminary-established heresy!)  I know my light is not infallible but it is bright enough to bring a smile to my heart where there was once a frown. I am just giving an account of the living hope that is in me by virtue, I believe, of the initiatives of the great I AM, the main character in our passage today and I pray the main character in the story of my life.

There are sovereign fingerprints all over our stories if we will just look for them. They are especially evident in Moses’ story. He was born to a slave women, spared from death and rescued by royalty. He jumps the gun on his destiny (killing an Egyptian), becomes a fugitive and a sojourner and is miraculously intercepted by God, hearing the commissioning voice of the great I AM. The stories of some take on some dramatic twists and turns. Mine was no exception.

Moses and my pedigree were very different. Where he was the child of a slave, I was born into a prominent family. Our departures from our native land had some similarities though. He fled because he had destroyed and Egyptian in a fight. I fled because I felt I had destroyed my reputation with a shameful life.  However, like Moses, I had a revelation of God as a sojourner in a land of strangers. (I don’t know how far Median was from Egypt but Tulsa, where my bush blazed, is a just a 2 hour drive east of my home town. But man was it chock full of strangers!)

In his encounter Moses was commissioned to liberate his Egyptian relatives from their slavery to Pharaoh. In my encounter I was commissioned, as I perceive all of Christ’s followers are, to liberate captives from their bondage to sin and lead them by word and example into the promised land of kingdom life. I have at least one more thing in common with Moses. I too jumped the gun a bit on my destiny.

While I was powerfully converted to Christ as a bona fide prodigal son, I very quickly learned a christian lifestyle of elder brotherdoing and complying and comparing. The doing became my identity. I became the great I-DO.  My identity became entangled and dependent on this doing. Some of this was driven by a deep desire to salvage my reputation, especially in the eyes of my father.  The combination of an insecure identity and an unlimited opportunity of great commission service is a perfect formula for creating an elder brother who has dutifully executed his discipleship do-list. The condition of my orphaned heart and the opportunity of religious service made for the perfect religious storm in my soul. Amazingly God was in the midst of this maelstrom! I learned that old stiff religious wineskins cannot hold new wine and they cannot fulfill their kingdom destiny of entering the promised kingdom or leading others there.

To my new precious grandson (and all your kin), I mostly want to tell you that you too have a story to experience and it is no less important than Moses was because it is God who is at work writing it. Moses had his mission and you will have yours. It may be high visibility like his or it may simply be working in your chosen vocation, side by side others who have not yet gained their freedom.

Moses had his burning bush and so shall you. There are no two of them alike. You were created in the image of God so the tinder for that holy flame resides within you. At just the right time and place, I AM will personally blow on his image in you and it will burst into a flame of awareness. At that point take your shoes off and acknowledge that I AM, out of love, has called your name. 

Learn to be still. Learn to take time. Learn to think and pray and laugh and sing, knowing that you are enclosed by the underlying and overarching goodness of God. You too shall be an agent of freedom. May you, like your Teacher, succeed in leading many into their destines and their promised lands. I look forward to watching as the chapters are added to your story. Special reminder; the Author of Life is brilliant and has a knack for surprising changes within a story. Note; Calling Jesus Lord is giving advance permission to the author to make changes as he sees fit. Seize your adventure!

Your Pop (boy does that ever looks funny in print!)

Father, I pray for my new grandson and all those whose names are written in your book of Life. Would you breathe on our inner flames, further igniting our faith. While we know we have all we need in Christ, we also know there is much more. We have tasted and seen that you are good and we unapologetically and boldly proclaim our eagernness to meet you in even greater power an intimacy. Amen.

 

 

 

 

 

Now Moses was pasturing the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian; and he led the flock to the west side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. 2The angel of the Lord appeared to him in a blazing fire from the midst of a bush; and he looked, and behold, the bush was burning with fire, yet the bush was not consumed. 3So Moses said, “I must turn aside now and see this marvelous sight, why the bush is not burned up.”4When the Lord saw that he turned aside to look, God called to him from the midst of the bush and said, “Moses, Moses!” And he said, “Here I am.” 5Then He said, “Do not come near here; remove your sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.” 6He said also, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” Then Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God. 

The Lord said, “I have surely seen the affliction of My people who are in Egypt, and have given heed to their cry because of their taskmasters, for I am aware of their sufferings. 8So I have come down to deliver them from the power of the Egyptians, and to bring them up from that land to a good and spacious land, to a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanite and the Hittite and the Amorite and the Perizzite and the Hivite and the Jebusite. 9Now, behold, the cry of the sons of Israel has come to Me; furthermore, I have seen the oppression with which the Egyptians are oppressing them 

The Mission of Moses

10Therefore, come now, and I will send you to Pharaoh, so that you may bring My people, the sons of Israel, out of Egypt.” 11But Moses said to God, “Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh, and that I should bring the sons of Israel out of Egypt?” 12And He said, “Certainly I will be with you, and this shall be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall worship God at this mountain.”

13Then Moses said to God, “Behold, I am going to the sons of Israel, and I will say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you.’ Now they may say to me, ‘What is His name?’ What shall I say to them?” 14God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM”; and He said, “Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you.'”15God, furthermore, said to Moses, “Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, ‘The Lord, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.’ This is My name forever, and this is My memorial-name to all generations.
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