Blogging Bible Study: Digging in the Desert - Coming out of Egypt.

Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi 

I honestly have no idea how many posts are going to be generated from the Exodus; I do want to kind of keep things to one general theme per post if I can...and they may be divvied up by the actions/attitudes of the folks we're looking at.  So, today...looking at the part 'DESERT' played in the escape from Egypt.

And make no mistake, it was an escape.  The people were in forced servitude.  Back in the day, one of my kids brought home a book from a school book fair about ancient Egypt that poo-poo'ed the whole idea that the great building projects had been done with slave labor.  The text assured the reader that the laborers had been paid in beer and bread.  It may have been true that they were given some provision.  But they were not free to leave.  They were not free to choose their  occupation.  They were forced to do the labor they were doing.  They were beaten if their work was not judged adequate.  By anyone's standards...that is human trafficking.  Otherwise known as slavery.

Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and said, "This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: 'Let my people go, so that they may hold a festival to me in the desert.' "  ...Then they said, 'The God of the Hebrews has met with us.  Now let us take a three-day journey into the desert to offer sacrifices to the LORD our God, or he may strike us with plagues or with the sword."   Ex 5: 1, 3, NIV 84.

That 'three day's journey' is a key detail; it shows up again...

After 4 plagues had struck Egypt, Pharaoh attempted a compromise, telling Moses and Aaron that the people could have their worship festival and accompanying sacrifices in the land in which they dwelt. But that wasn't the request, as Pharaoh was reminded,

'We must take a three-day journey into the desert to offer sacrifices to the LORD our God as he commands us.'  

Miserable with the flies that were the 4th plague, Pharaoh seemed to relent:

Pharaoh said, 'I will let you go to offer sacrifices to the LORD your God in the desert, but you must not go very far.  Now pray for me.'  Ex 8:27 -28

Of course, once the flies were gone, Pharaoh went back on his agreement and refused to let them go.  Six soul-crushing plagues later, mourning the sudden death of his firstborn, Pharaoh basically told the Israelites to get out...and they left quickly, having eaten the Passover meal packed up and ready to bug out.  But they did not go the way their forefathers had come.

So God led the people around by a desert road towards the Red Sea.  The Israelites went up out of Egypt armed for battle....After leaving Succoth, they camped at Etham on the edge of the desert.
Ex 13:18,20

The Israelites did not stay at Etham; they turned around  and camped by the sea.  All part of God's strategy.

"Pharaoh will think , 'The Israelites are wandering around the land in confusion, hemmed in by the desert.'"  Ex 14:3


Pharaoh thought exactly that and sent his armies after them.  Camped between the Egyptian army, the desert, and the sea, the people complained for the first of MANY times.

They said to Moses, 'Was it because there  were no graves in Egypt that you have brought us to the desert to die?  What have you done by bringing us out of Egypt?...It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than die in the desert!"  Ex.14:11, 12b

And, for the first of many times, the Israelites saw themselves delivered by God's intervention.  I've seen many depictions of the crossing of the Red Sea; none of them pictured the Israelites straining against a strong east wind, which I am sure they did; it was the wind that dried the ground and held the water back.  A freak wind.  A God wind.  By the blast of your nostrils the waters piled up.  The surging waters stood firm like a wall; the deep waters congealed in the heart of the sea.   - Ex. 15:8

When it was over, the Israelites stood on the eastern shore and the enemy that had pursued them was no more.  They were not going back.   See, in all the interactions Moses had with Pharaoh, there was no mention of them leaving and never returning; they were to go a 3-day's journey into the desert, hold their festival, and return.  After the 9th plague, Pharaoh tried to get Moses to agree to go into the desert but leave their flocks and herds behind.  Moses said, no,  we need them all so we can make the required sacrifice.  Pharaoh ordered Moses from his sight, stating 'The day you see my face you will die!'  Moses agreed, 'I will never appear before you again.'  Then he prophesied the tenth and final plague, death of the firstborn, and that Pharaoh's officials would come to him and tell them to leave.  But there was no mention of a change of request; Moses had steadfastly maintained that they would travel for three days into the desert and hold their festival.  IE, they were to travel TO the desert, travel three days INTO the desert, hold the festival (which did not have a fixed time) and then return.  All in all, it could add up to as much as a month, give or take a few days.  Pharaoh sent for Moses and Aaron -- Moses did not come before him seeking audience -- and told them 'Go, worship the LORD as you have requested.  Take your flocks and herds, as you have said, and go.  And also bless me.'  (12:31b-32).  This is still implying the '3-days-into-the-desert journey'.  Pharaoh, by sending the army after them,  broke the agreement and chased them to the other side of the sea.  They couldn't return now.  The sea was in the way.  And it was Pharaoh's doing.

I'm not sure that fine point had ever occurred to me before this very moment; Pharaoh himself made sure the Hebrews could not return as they had implied.  He chased them into their freedom.

He had chased them into the desert. Where, as only Moses and Aaron truly knew at this point, they would encounter God.

Out of slavery into the desert.   Nobody said it is easy to leave a life of bondage; there's stuff to go through  and lessons to be learned. The desert is often the first stop out of bondage...because, even though we would never know beforehand, God is found in the desert. 

...and, so, back to school...

Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi

A long-awaited vision is coming to pass...my church is initiating a ministry school. We've had a couple of goes at it in the past, and learned from them, and now, well, this looks to be the foundation of something that really can grow.  I'm heavily involved in the data side...tracking attendance and such.

It's a two year commitment; the first year, being the first year, is at a discounted tuition rate. They had about twice as many folks sign up as they expected.

I kinda wanted to do the worship track...but I'm not a worship leader.  Songwriting is my thing. I didn't know if I could do it for songwriting. 

I talked to the Education pastor...who is also our small group pastor...about it a couple of times.  The first year is meeting on Wednesdays, the same as our small groups.  That may change in the future, but for now, that works.  But I couldn't teach a small group if I did the class.

I finally went to him and asked him what he needed me to do.  Admin stuff?  Teach a small group? He said he would love it if I could head up the check in processes for them...and then he really surprised me by saying he'd love for me to do the worship track course designed for laymen.  I've already done the Master's degree from the correspondence school, so there wasn't much point to me doing the general ed stuff...but after a chat with the pastor leading the worship school, they all agreed that I could sit in on the worship track classes.

I figured I'd just, you know, kind of audit the class.  Observe and listen and learn.  Not really participate.  Because, you know, I'm not, like, a real student.

But tonight was orientation.  We walked everyone through practicing checking in...we have a new check in system, so even folks who had done it before needed a little coaching on what to click when.  They picked up their student welcome box and went upstairs to what was the library when our building was a high school but is now our children's sanctuary for snacks and the actual orientation class.  One volunteer and I stayed behind for about another 15 minutes to check in stragglers, then we shut down the kiosks, rolled them back to the main checkin area and went upstairs.

The volunteers had taken the unclaimed welcome boxes upstairs and I happened to walk by that table as I entered the meeting.

And I spied, with my little eye, a box with my name on it.

Y'all.  I almost cried real tears, right there.  I had a box...just like everybody else.  I don't know why that hit me so hard.  I guess I had visions of myself being, well, kind of tolerated in the program.  But instead...I got a welcome box.  I truly did not expect one, since, well, I wasn't a 'real student'.

I had a paradigm shift.  Why was I there?  I was there because someone in leadership said, 'I want you to do this.'  It was beyond permission...it was enabling (That word does not always mean a bad deal).  I had just taken it as permission to sit in.  The box meant I could participate and dig in and not be afraid that someone would take it wrong.  Suddenly, I didn't think of this as something I had maneuvered myself into.  I didn't do anything, really, other than follow up with what was suggested.  So if I didn't really put myself here...then that means Someone Else arranged things.

And I would be treating that opportunity with disrespect if I did not dig and study and push myself to do things I really can't do.  Even if it means doing something badly in front of folks who do that something very well. 

I have experienced humiliation before.  It is not fatal.  And if there is freedom/empowerment/ release on the other side, it will even be worth it. 

Blogging BibleStudy - Digging in the Desert: Desert Calling

Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi

The first two chapters of Exodus tell the backstory of Moses...where and what he came from and  how he happened to be where he was at the start of chapter three...saved from infanticide by a shrewd but faith-filled mama and quick-thinking older sister, raised in luxury and supremely educated, only to have his first attempt to Do The Right Thing blow up on him and send him into exile as a shepherd.

Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the desert and came to Horeb, the mountain of God.   (3:1)

Moses wasn't just in the desert...he was on the far side of the desert.  I have often wondered if  that place was known as 'the mountain of God' before Moses's experience there, or if that's what it was called later.  Because God was there...and he commissioned Moses to go and do what he failed to do so many years earlier...save his people from their Egyptian overlords.

...then you and the elders are to go to the King of Egypt and say to him, 'The LORD, the God of the Hebrews, has met with us.  Let us take a three-day journey into the desert to offer sacrifices to the LORD our God.' (3:18)

Moses protested...and God relented enough to allow Aaron to be the spokesperson, since Moses, for all his education, apparently had a speech impediment.   God did not allow Moses to turn down the assignment;  Moses was  not allowed to live out his days in obscurity while someone else confronted Pharaoh.  But he was given help.

The LORD said to Aaron, 'Go into the desert to meet Moses.'   So he met Moses at the mountain of God and kissed him. (4:27)

The help came to him in the desert.  It was a confirmation of what God had told him. 

And Moses and Aaron left the desert and went back to Egypt. It's worth noting that, if they were successful, they would return to the very same spot...the mountain of God on the far side of the desert...bringing others with them:

And God said, 'I will be with you.  And this will be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you:  When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you [plural] will worship God on this mountain.' 3:12

I am very much reminded of my own desert experiences, my own inclination to want to retire to 'the far side of the desert' and be...safe...from my own foibles.  Those times when my own attempts to Do The Right Thing backfire and do more harm than good, spoiling not only that opportunity but messing with relationships that I value.  I can't hurt anything...or anyone...on the far side of the desert, can I?

But God tells us, in the desert, that our failings and flaws are not disqualifications from His calling.  He will send us help if we need it, to go bring others to the place where He met us...

Skipped the Week

Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi

Well, I did not get the next installment in the Desert Study yesterday because...it was my wedding anniversary (39 years, thanks for asking).

My office is closed on Fridays; My Sweet Babboo took the day off and we spent the better part of the day wandering about the local Botanical Gardens.  We have annual passes, but can't seem to make use of it other than for the discounts on special events, like the Christmas Lights display.  So, once MSB told me he was planning to take the day off, it seemed like a good way to just spend some time together.

The Huntsville Botanical Gardens opened in 1988 and has really, really grown.  I think the last time we spent a day wandering was back in, oh, 2009 or something like that (I just went and checked, because I posted about it on the sewing blog.  2006.  Oy.  And that dogwood succumbed to a tree disease  a few years later)  Amazing how much it has changed  since then.

'Moses Rocks' -- my name for them.  If I ever have a yard fountain it would be one of those.

So, we had a nice day racking up steps on the fitbits, lol.  It's nice to remind ourselves that a nice time together doesn't have to involve packing stuff up and going somewhere else.

 

 Iconic view from the walkway in the Water Garden

 This unique piece is on the very edge of the garden and goes nowhere.  Interesting....

In the butterfly house.

I'll pick back up with the Desert Study next Friday. 

Conference Approaches...Kingdom Sisterhood 2019

Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi

The first major women's conference our church held was in the fall of 2001. That also happened to be the final nudge that convinced My Sweet Babboo and me that this was to be our family's next place of service.We'd been in our previous church for 20 years; moving to a new congregation was...a process.

Our church has had a major women's conference every year since, with the exception of 2005, when we took all the funds designated to host the conference and put it towards hurricane relief to help those who had lost everything to Katrina.  In 2008 we had a shift in the women's ministry; the conference that year was called SHE Revolution (SHE = 'Seeking His Embrace')...which led to the women's ministry coming under a new vision and a new moniker...She Revolution.  Over the years, it's kind of morphed into 'She Women's ministries'.

A key piece to the puzzle was the 2013 (I think?) Color Sisterhood conference in Sydney, Australia.  Somewhere around 30 women from our church went...including a number of our lady pastors (pastoring is a couple's calling here; husbands and wives serve together.  Same for deacons and elders.  Not getting into the background of it, just explaining the culture so the terms make sense.).  That conference heavily influenced the direction our women's ministry took in the years following.

This year's conference, then, is probably a direct result of the seeds sown in 2013.  It's titled 'Kingdom Sisterhood' and at our first leadership prayer time leading up to the conference we were all given an assignment:  to read Bobbie Houston's book on sisterhood.

So I ordered it from Amazon and it arrived over the weekend.

I started reading immediately; there really isn't much time between now and the conference (Sept 6 - 7) so I thought I should get on it.

But I have a confession to make.

I can hardly say 'Kingdom Sisterhood' without getting a lump in my throat and a heavy sting in my eyelids.  See, I do not have a good history with this 'sisterhood' thing.  It grieves me that I am not good at it, but there it is.

You folks who have been reading the blog for a long time will know this; I talk about it from time to time....that self-protection wall I have that keeps relationships safe. And by safe...I mean, hopefully,  so that my bull-in-the-china-shop tendencies will not overstep those boundaries and I won't hurt someone's feelings without realizing I've done it.  I do not always succeed.  There have been conferences in which I have sat in the back, well away from others, and cried myself into a state of complete sinus shutdown. Because of this whole I'm-not-good-at-sisterhood thing.  Oh, there were specifics to each time that reflected current events but at the core of it...was that.  My ability to offend people without even trying, to so completely fail to explain something  that I left folks with the sure knowledge that I thought something/felt something/expected something that had nothing whatever to do with my actual thoughts, feelings or expectations.

My friends, this is ridiculous.  And it has to stop.  I have to get it.  This is the thing I wanted to leave in Israel...that social awkwardness that has plagued me since elementary school.  I didn't know it would rise up and slap me in the face quite so quickly or emotionally, but here I am.

So you know, this is sort of an accountability thing here.  I have GOT to get over this blocking hill.  I have to figure out how to deal with my inevitable faux pas in a healthier way.  I am surely not the only person who does this sort of thing...but pulling back and retreating and...sitting in the dark back seats alone...is not the way handle it.

Sort of like swimming...someone who knows how to swim won't be afraid of water.  Someone who knows how to deal with conflict and miscommunication won't be afraid of close relationships.

It's time to stomp that down...and let it stay stomped down.

And experience Kingdom Sisterhood.

Blogging Bible Study: Desert Digging - Genesis

Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi

So, you know how I said last week that  by today I would either have a plan, or we'd jump right in and see where it goes?

Yeah, well, I think the plan is going to be to just jump in.

I pulled out the concordance and wrote down every reference listed for 'desert' in the NIV and started looking them up.

I disregarded any that were purely geographical...IE, something describing boundaries that listed a desert.  I was looking for primarily for stuff that happened in or because of a desert.  It's kind of a slow process; I'm currently up to Numbers.  It looks like the trip from Egypt to the Promised land is probably going to require multiple posts.  I'll know what I want to do with that once I finish looking up all the references through Deuteronomy.

But, for today, I'm going to talk about the desert in Genesis. There are only 5 references...and 3 of them involve Hagar/Ishmael.  That's kind of interesting.

First, Hagar ran away because Sarai, her mistress who had never been harsh to her, suddenly turned  unreasonable.  She made it as far as the spring by the road to Shur, in the desert (Gen 16:7).

I could probably camp right here., because the whole story of Sarai/Sarah and Hagar is very intriguing to me, and this is the incident that inspired the name of the whole blog, after all... but I'm going to try and focus on what happened in the desert...away from the oasis where there was some degree of security and comfort.

Look at the phrasing in verse 7 -- The angel of the LORD found Hagar.  Ok, semantics...usually when the scripture says 'The angel of the LORD', it's generally accepted to mean a pre-incarnate appearance of Jesus, as opposed to 'an angel from the LORD', which could be any of the heavenly host sent on a task.  So we will go with that.  It was Jesus, before he was Jesus... and he FOUND her.  He wasn't out for a evening walkabout in the desert...he went to her on purpose.  Looking for her.  Seeking her.  She was involved in a man's plan to bring about God's will...instead of God's plan...and yet God cared for her and sent her back.  He could have let her die in the desert, and her child with her, to stop the division and conflict that had already started, but he didn't.  It was Abraham's child,  and he mattered; Hagar was a slave who may not even have been completely willing to play the surrogate mother role...and she mattered.  He saved her life, but told her to change her attitude (...go back to your mistress and submit to her - vs.9)  as it was her attitude that had provoked Sarai to treat her harshly.  The Angel didn't condemn her for what she had done, but he did instruct her to do better.

So Hagar went back, with the promise  that she would be the ancestress of descendants too numerous to count...and a puzzling, if not downright disturbing, prophecy about Ishmael.  How well did she implemented her instructions?  Well, she did at least superficially, anyway.  But Ishmael grew up contrary.  Sarah caught him doing something that disturbed her so deeply she asked Abraham to send him and his mother away.  Abraham sought God on it and God confirmed Sarah's request..  So we see the next desert reference in 21:14 --

 Early the next morning Abraham took some food and a skin of water and gave them to Hagar.  He set them on her shoulders and then sent her off with the boy.  She went on her way and wandered in the desert of Beersheba.

Hagar wandered until the skin of water was gone.  She and Ishmael,who had to have been somewhere between 14 and 19 years old,  were near death when the angel of God spoke to her again...this time, from heaven...and renewed the promise to make Ishmael into a great nation.   Encouraged, Hagar suddenly perceived a nearby well, so she filled the skin, gave Ishmael a drink and they survived.    They may have just hung out there in the vicinity of the well for a while; verse 20 tells us God was with the boy as he grew up.  He lived in the desert and became an archer.  We see in verse 21 that  While he was living in the Desert of Paran, his mother got a wife for him from Egypt.  

Hagar met God in the desert.  She was desperate, and he found her there, called to her there.  Ishmael made the desert his home. He learned to live there.   God was with them, watching over them.  He had promised Abraham to do so.

There are two more verses in Genesis that specifically reference the desert.  In the list of the descendants of Esau, we find a guy named Anah, who was apparently something of a folk hero...

This is the Anah who discovered the hot springs in the desert while he was grazing the donkeys of his father Zibeon.  (Gen 36:24) ...although the marginal reading says this could be interpreted 'discovered water' and the King James translates it 'found the mules'.  Whichever it was, he was known for doing it when Genesis was finally written down.  He found something in the desert so remarkable that folks talked about it for years and years and years.

Finally, for the final verse for our look at 'Desert' in Genesis, we have 37:22 -

"Don't shed any blood.  Throw him into this cistern here in the desert, but don't lay a hand on him."  Reuben said this to rescue him from them and take him back to his father.

This, of course, happens in the story of Joseph and his jealous brothers.  I hadn't thought much about cisterns until going to Israel and seeing the extreme severity of the desert, and hearing of elaborate water works in various places so that any rainwater would be collected in cisterns.  We saw some of the cisterns along the western wall excavations;  we were told of the cistern system on Masada to insure there would be water on the plateau there.  Cisterns were man-made covered pits, often with channels or canals that collected runoff from distant sources and brought the water to the cistern. Some were pretty amazing feats of engineering; but apparently they are quite common in the area...if you know what to look for.  I poked around a bit online and found that the Nabataeans invented a waterproof cement well before the Romans that they used to line the cisterns they dug. In any case, the shepherds of a region would know the location of the cisterns so they would know where to find water as they moved the flocks around.  It probably was no coincidence that Joseph found his brothers near a cistern, even though the cistern Joseph was thrown into happened to be empty at the time. Reuben wasn't there when Joseph was pulled from the cistern and sold as a slave, so his plan to rescue his half-brother didn't work out.  But...Joseph's journey began in the desert.  He couldn't know it, but he was on his way  to becoming the second in command of  Egypt.

One could,  I suppose, argue the point that most of the area is desert-like, so any significant things would, of course, happen in the desert in those early years.  But those things specifically happened away from settlements, away from civilization.  The ESV translates the  word 'desert' as 'wilderness', perhaps to emphasize the fact that this was more than just a dry spot...it was a dry, uninhabited place.  A hostile place that could kill you if you didn't know what you were about or couldn't find water.  Yet, in the desert...Hagar met God and was cared for; Anah found something remarkable, and Joseph began his journey to his destiny.

It's Time for Another Study...

Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi

I just had a sad revelation...it is August, and I have not done a single online study yet this year, other than the quick little look at the Hallel during Holy Week.

And, you know, I can tell.  I miss it when I'm not digging and discussing.  Even a one-way discussion is enough to make me ponder and think.

The trouble is, I cannot decide what I want to dig into.   Do I want to do a book study?  What book?  Or shall I pick a topic and run with it?   Or maybe a character study?  Or, maybe an obscure book, one that is not often considered?  I feel a lot of interest but no direction, if that makes sense.

The only real tug I have, and it's not clear, is 'desert'.  The biggest surprise to me on the Israel trip was the incredible beauty of the Judean desert...and I'm wondering if my thoughts on the desert experiences recorded in the Bible will shift now, after having been there. 

The verse that echoed over and over in my spirit while we were there was Hosea 2:14...I am now going to allure her; I will lead her into the desert and speak tenderly to her there. 

Sometimes these little nudges end up leading to the most amazing places.

So, maybe I will call this one 'Desert Digging'. 

Because, you know, I will dig around in the concordance to even see what I'm going to be writing about.  So, over the next week I will either come up with a plan...or just jump in and see where we end up.

Since I have felt for some time now that I am in a rather desert-y place...maybe this is just what I need.