Perhaps you are like me and have been blessed with growing up with many Bible stories. Unfortunately, sometimes, we are so familiar with them, that we miss reflecting more deeply upon them. Well this week, I’ve been immersed in Exodus 32-34. One of my dissertation texts is Exod 34:1-9, especially verses 6-7. This is where God passes by Moses, shielding him in the cleft of a rock, and proclaiming his name.
6 And [the LORD] passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, “The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, 7 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 sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation.”
8 Moses bowed to the ground at once and worshiped. (ESV)
The greater context is that this is just after the golden calf idolatry, which is after God speaking directly to all the people for the giving of the Ten Commandments. Then all the people say, “We will do what you’ve commanded!” With no other gods being the crux of how to live in relationship with God and be blessed for thousands of generations, they really messed up!
In the midst of such a momentous failure—and with some advocacy from Moses—God forgives. God’s love carries us through and restores us. This is an amazing reconciliation story. I pray it encourages you as it has encouraged me.
I have needed some encouragement. I’m in the doldrums of writing. While I enjoy the reading and the journey, it seems like the writing is not progressing enough. It can be discouraging. So, I dig into the text and plod along.
I did buy borrowing privileges from Northwest University in Kirkland. It is the closest library with a good collection of commentaries (actually better than Trinity’s). I worked there for several hours on Friday at a table with wonderful sunlight streaming in.
I borrowed some books to take home. I wanted to scan a few pages to mark up the text with notes. However, after upgrading my computer to Windows 10, my scanner doesn’t work. So, after a couple hours of my attempts at uninstalling, downloading, and installing new drivers and scan doctors, as well as reading through support threads of things to try, I was able to secure help from a support tech. It took over 1.5 hours of direct control of my computer to try everything that I had done to finally figure out a functioning work-around. At least I can scan now!
Anya enjoyed a team dinner on Wednesday night. The T-shirts and sweatshirts I screen printed last weekend were then rubber-banded for tie-dying at the dinner. With all the rubberbands, it ended up to be a night of shooting rubber bands at each other!
Two soccer games, a pre-ACT test, a football game with friends at another high school, a prom with a group of young ladies at another high school (with sophomores dressed in Seattle grunge), piano practice, and barista training for the church espresso stand tomorrow morning fills in the gaps between school, homework, and soccer practice.
(Sorry, Kathi, not enough pictures this week!)