Tag: faith

Posted on

A Gift for Moses


Then the LORD said to him, “This is the land I promised with an oath to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
I said I would give it to their descendants.
I have let you see it with your own eyes, but you may not go there.”
As the LORD had predicted, the LORD’s servant Moses died in Moab. He was buried in
a valley in Moab, near Beth Peor. Even today no one knows where his grave is.
Moses was 120 years old when he died. His eyesight never became poor,
and he never lost his physical strength.”
Deuteronomy 34:4-7

As I read this passage. . . .the final glimpse of the life of Moses . . . I am struck with the
tenderness of God toward His servant Moses. Perhaps “death” does not seem to be a tender part of the human story, but the way God Himself cared for Moses in his final days of life is permeated with His Love, Tenderness, and Understanding of Moses’ unique Story with Him.

God Himself led Moses to a mountaintop, where he could see the Land he had spent 40 years reaching. Forty years of physically and spiritually leading a nation that God had chosen for His Own eternal Purposes had brought Moses to this Moment. It may not have been the Moment he had imagined, with “the rest of the Story” literally within sight. He had probably had his own hopes and vision of what life would be in that Land of God’s choosing. He may have imagined himself standing on that Promised Land, seeing it . . . walking it . . . living in it with the nation God had chosen him to lead.

But God, in His tender Mercy, led Moses to the “best view” that his tired eyes could take into his mind, spirit, and heart. He was looking at the “Promise” God had ordained. He was looking at it in the Presence of God Himself. What words may have been exchanged as he and God, together, looked. Did God point out regions where His People would live . . .places that would become part of their story. . . where Jerusalem would sit for thousands of years to come. . .within sight of the humble village where Messiah would be born. . .

God was rewarding and blessing Moses in that precious Time together. One-on-one. . .
bringing a sweet, tender closure to a man born a slave, raised as a Prince in the house of
Pharoah, and leading God’s People to the place He had ordained and promised from The
Beginning.

At last, God gave him rest . . . in His Presence.

Posted on

Where Are We Going?!?

“By faith Abraham . . . obeyed and went,

Even tho’ he did not know where he was going.” 

I was in an old car, late at night, being driven through the Sahara desert, returning to my “home” in the Saharawi refugee camps.   A friend and I had attended an event in a different camp, which had lasted long into the night.    The driver was new to me and did not speak English.  It was a very quiet drive.

The desert sky is spectacular in the night.  There are no electrical lights, nor cables or poles or trees to distract from the vast expanse stretching from horizon to horizon.  It’s just the brilliant moon and shimmering stars and galaxies filling the entire sky set against the black canvas.  I never tire of looking up, in awe of the display.

As I watched through my open window, the busyness of the day drained away, and soon I was nodding off.   Little did I know….my driver was having the same experience!

I don’t know how long I’d slept, but when I woke up, I noticed that the moon was shining through the opposite window from where I’d last seen it.   Strange.  After mentally rehearsing how to say in Hassanya,  “Where are we?”, I tapped the driver’s shoulder.   His head jerked up, and he began looking at the sky through his window.  Quickly stopping the car, he got out and stood looking up.  A  few moments later, he turned the truck around and headed a different direction, now extremely awake.   The moon was back in the place I’d seen it when I had dozed off.

He had fallen asleep!    No idea for how long, and I didn’t really want to think about that.   But that night sky was his map . . . no GPS necessary.  He knew his star map, and it worked the best in the dark!  (Most effectively with eyesopen!)

Abraham would have been following the same “map.”  Even though he “did not know where he was going,”  he at least knew, from his “sky map”, where he was and where he had been. God’s celestial map was in place, especially detailed in the darkness of night.  It was not Abraham’s job to plot the course, nor decide the destination.  That was God’s role.  But in His gracious kindness, God had provided (from The Beginning) an infinite expanse high above our earth-bound lives, affording us a visual Constant under which to live.  Especially in the dark.

“By faith . . . “   Abraham went.   Three wise men/kings went.   Prophets went.  Hagar went. Joseph and Mary, cradling their precious baby, went.  All of them, and so many more…went, because God told them to go into that vast desert unknown.  Nightly map provided.  His Presence provided.

That was what mattered most.