Bitter Water

Thursday, September 21, 2023

Then Moses led the people of Israel away from the Red Sea, and they moved out into the desert of Shur.  They traveled in this desert for three days without finding any water.  When they came to the oasis of Marah, the water was too bitter to drink.  So they called the place Marah (which means “bitter”).  Then the people complained and turned against Moses.  “What are we going to drink?” they demanded.  So Moses cried out to the Lord for help, and the Lord showed him a piece of wood.  Moses threw it into the water, and this made the water good to drink.  It was there at Marah that the Lord set before them the following decree as a standard to test their faithfulness to him.  He said, “If you will listen carefully to the voice of the Lord your God and do what is right in his sight, obeying his commands and keeping all his decrees, then I will not make you suffer any of the diseases I sent on the Egyptians; for I am the Lord who heals you.”   Exodus 15:22-26

The children of Israel had water issues.  When they were running away from Egypt, they were stuck with too much water, the Red Sea, preventing them from getting to the Promised Land.  The Egyptian storm troopers were hot on their heels, and God parted the waters so they could walk through dust, instead of swimming (and mostly drowning).  Three days later they had the opposite issue – no water.  They complained and Moses led them to Marah…where the water was unhealthy, bitter.  God fixed that by purifying the water.  Further on in the journey they were dry once again, and God brought forth water from a rock. 

I had my own issues with a water valve this week.  The plumber came right away and did another miracle, fixed it, and charged me less than the cost of a Buick!

Normally I write in the early morning hours.  Yesterday was an exception.  I started the day by getting my dog settled with his business, and carrying him to that spot he occupies right next to my desk.  I began to write when dawn was just breaking.  Elizabeth opened the study door and the pitiful sight of my bride in pain was worse than Israel’s drought on the run.  We immediately got in the car and went to the Emergency Room.  Around three o’clock we found out she had pancreatitis, along with a secondary infection.  An hour later she was admitted and settled into a room.  It is now 8:22pm, I’ve just had supper; it’s been a day!

So what does all that have to do with Marah’s bitter water?  Well, I’m glad you asked.  Today’s events were much like Israel’s Marah experience.  When they were back in Egypt as slaves, they could at least count on having water to drink from the beautiful river Nile.  Out in the desert life became uncertain, uncontrollable.  Today reminded me of that…my sweet bride, usually smiley and always on the lookout for our family…now helplessly rubbing her side, and not wanting to do anything but be left alone.  And Russell, helpless, unable to do anything like Superman, leaping tall buildings, stopping speeding bullets; I had no way to take away her hurt.  All I could do was just sit by the bitter water of pain.  I’m not sure how many people prayed for us today; I do know my phone looked like an exhausted little puppy when the battery died.  Tons of people responded to our Facebook post, and the word spread.  When I left Elizabeth’s room at 6:30 this evening she was smiling, and looking forward to coming home tomorrow.  The doc had said, “we’ll see,” but I know that look in the woman’s eye.

So…time to wrap it up and get some sleep.  My day was planned to write.  Pain had other ideas…and like too much water at the Red Sea, too little water in the desert, and bitter water at Marah, I got frazzled and saw my weakness.  But God had the answer…even before I asked.

For You Today 

Whatever you’ve got going on today, remember where the well is located.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!

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There are about 2,600 devotional posts and 400 sermons in the Rocky Road library. 

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Images without citation are in public domain.  Unless noted, Scripture quoted from NLT^©   

Between the Rock and Hard Place

 

Thursday, March 3, 2022

So the slave drivers and foremen went out and told the people: “This is what Pharaoh says:  I will not provide any more straw for you.   Go and get it yourselves.  Find it wherever you can.  But you must produce just as many bricks as before!”  So the people scattered throughout the land of Egypt in search of stubble to use as straw.  Meanwhile, the Egyptian slave drivers continued to push hard.  “Meet your daily quota of bricks, just as you did when we provided you with straw!” they demanded.  Then they whipped the Israelite foremen they had put in charge of the work crews.  “Why haven’t you met your quotas either yesterday or today?” they demanded.  So the Israelite foremen went to Pharaoh and pleaded with him.  “Please don’t treat your servants like this,” they begged.  “We are given no straw, but the slave drivers still demand, ‘Make bricks!’  We are being beaten, but it isn’t our fault!  Your own people are to blame!”  But Pharaoh shouted, “You’re just lazy!  Lazy!  That’s why you’re saying, ‘Let us go and offer sacrifices to the Lord.’  Now get back to work!  No straw will be given to you, but you must still produce the full quota of bricks.”  The Israelite foremen could see that they were in serious trouble when they were told, “You must not reduce the number of bricks you make each day.”  As they left Pharaoh’s court, they confronted Moses and Aaron, who were waiting outside for them.  The foremen said to them, “May the Lord judge and punish you for making us stink before Pharaoh and his officials.  You have put a sword into their hands, an excuse to kill us!”  Then Moses went back to the Lord and protested, “Why have you brought all this trouble on your own people, Lord?  Why did you send me?  Ever since I came to Pharaoh as your spokesman, he has been even more brutal to your people.  And you have done nothing to rescue them!”  Exodus 5:10-23

Four hundred years in captivity was a hard place.  The descendants of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph were conscripts of Pharaoh’s dynasty.  They were forced to work endlessly just to stay alive, and had nothing.  Then things really got hard.

Bondage is brutal – and that is certainly an understatement.  Not just Israel, but humanity has been under something of bondage to COVID-19 and its cousins the past two years.  Even if you have been blessed enough to have escaped having the virus, you know someone, perhaps many, who have had to tough it out like making bricks without straw.

You’ve also seen what happens when the rock of struggle meets the hard place of frustration…someone must take the blame.  Pharaoh, like any pandemic virus, was an iron-fisted, hard-hearted tyrant.  He threatened, bullied, and killed.  His soldiers spread the virus of hate and oppression.  The people, frustrated, having no place to turn for relief, blamed Moses for stirring up Pharaoh’s anger.  Moses went right to prayer….and blamed God!

Just a few plagues later, the slaves were seeing Egypt in the rearview mirror.  Forty years later Moses saw the Promised Land from the mountaintop.  But none of the original group, including Moses, ever set foot on the other side of Jordan. 

The conclusion is rather rock-like:  Blaming someone else for your problems will get you somewhere, and it’s often a harder place than the rock you were facing.

For You Today

When the temptation comes for you to blame someone, some pandemic, some circumstances, or God, for whatever trouble presents, let your prayer of surrender to God’s will and care turn blame into blessing.  

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!  

[1] Title image:  Pixabay.com  Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©    

Trusting the Tracks

 

Wednesday, February 3, 2021

Jeremiah wrote a letter from Jerusalem to the elders, priests, prophets, and all the people who had been exiled to Babylon by King Nebuchadnezzar.  This was after King Jehoiachin, the queen mother, the court officials, the other officials of Judah, and all the craftsmen and artisans had been deported from Jerusalem.  He sent the letter with Elasah son of Shaphan and Gemariah son of Hilkiah when they went to Babylon as King Zedekiah’s ambassadors to Nebuchadnezzar.  This is what Jeremiah’s letter said:  This is what the Lord of Heaven’s Armies, the God of Israel, says to all the captives he has exiled to Babylon from Jerusalem:  “Build homes, and plan to stay.  Plant gardens, and eat the food they produce.  Marry and have children.  Then find spouses for them so that you may have many grandchildren.  Multiply!  Do not dwindle away!  And work for the peace and prosperity of the city where I sent you into exile.  Pray to the Lord for it, for its welfare will determine your welfare.”  This is what the Lord of Heaven’s Armies, the God of Israel, says:  “Do not let your prophets and fortune-tellers who are with you in the land of Babylon trick you.  Do not listen to their dreams, because they are telling you lies in my name.  I have not sent them,” says the Lord.  This is what the Lord says:  “You will be in Babylon for seventy years.  But then I will come and do for you all the good things I have promised, and I will bring you home again.  For I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord.  “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.  In those days when you pray, I will listen.  If you look for me wholeheartedly, you will find me.  I will be found by you,” says the Lord.  “I will end your captivity and restore your fortunes.  I will gather you out of the nations where I sent you and will bring you home again to your own land.”

One of the more trustworthy aspects of travelling by train is that the tracks always lead to the destination.  If you lay down tracks from Charlotte to Memphis the train will always move faithfully between those two cities.  One of the more certain terrors of travelling by train is if someone has messed with the tracks. 

The people of Jeremiah’s day must have figured someone messed with the tracks.  They were God’s favored, the chosen people; now they were defeated captives down in Babylon.  Someone had messed with the tracks of God’s promised people.

If you rewind the story a bit you find that it was God’s own people who had messed with the tracks of their journey.  They had forgotten who they were, a nation to be held close to God’s heart, obedient, faithful, and different from all others on earth.  And so the defeat by Babylonian invaders, the fall of Jerusalem, and being held as slaves in a foreign kingdom was their own doing; talk about a derailed train ride!

Against that backdrop, Jeremiah, God’s prophet, mostly viewed as an enemy because he had warned it was coming, and from a pit that was his jail cell, takes quill in hand and writes to the captives.  His message:  It’s all good, folks; hold on; this is all part of God’s good plans for you; trust the tracks; keep truckin’.

Good plans, Jeremiah?  Son, have you been in the new wine again?  We are captives, slaves, and our whole army lies bloodied and decomposing on the battlefield.  We lost, and we are doomed…what do you mean, good plans?

Ultimately God was in the process of purifying the thoughts of people who had decided they could lay tracks in any direction they wanted.  They’d come unglued in terms of honest lives, cheating one another.  They’d left off taking seriously their commission to honor and worship Jehovah God with their lives; instead, they began acting more like their worldly neighbors.  They plotted course for proclaiming their own greatness rather than trusting the tracks God had given them.  God’s tracks led straight to the Temple and the presence of God; the tracks they were laying down were for the far country.

Defeat at the hands of the Babylonian marauders was not just political, it was theological, a mirror held up for Israel (and the rest of the world) to see how derailed God’s people can get, and the consequences that inevitably follow.  This was not only a good plan, it was God’s best plan for purging the kind of thought which imagines the wages of sin can be changed.

Ultimately the good plan of God brought just what Jeremiah wrote, hope, the one innermost emotional soul nutrient which makes human existence possible.  Without hope no person (or nation, or species) can continue long.  God’s good plan showed Israel their only hope was in the God who had taken them from Egypt’s captivity into the land of promise.  The God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph was still on the throne, and the tracks that led to that throne room hadn’t changed location.

For You Today

We are still amid Covid-19’s pandemic, a captivity of sorts.  Asking where it came from might be like Jeremiah’s flock wondering how they could’ve been blind-sided by the Babylonians.  The answer is the same – it’s still God’s good plan for us.  The antidote is more than vaccines and masks; it’s time to get back to trusting the tracks.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!

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[1] Title Image: Courtesy of Pixabay.com   Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©

For another post on Numbers 22 see God's Plan and I Know the Plans I Have for You  

 

You Want Me to Go WHERE?

Wednesday, April 15, 2020

Early the next morning Joshua and all the Israelites left Acacia Grove and arrived at the banks of the Jordan River, where they camped before crossing. Three days later the Israelite officers went through the camp, giving these instructions to the people: “When you see the Levitical priests carrying the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord your God, move out from your positions and follow them.  Since you have never traveled this way before, they will guide you.  Stay about half a mile behind them, keeping a clear distance between you and the Ark.  Make sure you don’t come any closer.”  Then Joshua told the people, “Purify yourselves, for tomorrow the Lord will do great wonders among you.”  In the morning Joshua said to the priests, “Lift up the Ark of the Covenant and lead the people across the river.”  And so they started out and went ahead of the people.  The Lord told Joshua, “Today I will begin to make you a great leader in the eyes of all the Israelites.  They will know that I am with you, just as I was with Moses.  Give this command to the priests who carry the Ark of the Covenant: ‘When you reach the banks of the Jordan River, take a few steps into the river and stop there.’”  So Joshua told the Israelites, “Come and listen to what the Lord your God says.  Today you will know that the living God is among you.  He will surely drive out the Canaanites, Hittites, Hivites, Perizzites, Girgashites, Amorites, and Jebusites ahead of you.  Look, the Ark of the Covenant, which belongs to the Lord of the whole earth, will lead you across the Jordan River!  Now choose twelve men from the tribes of Israel, one from each tribe.  The priests will carry the Ark of the Lord, the Lord of all the earth. As soon as their feet touch the water, the flow of water will be cut off upstream, and the river will stand up like a wall.”  So the people left their camp to cross the Jordan, and the priests who were carrying the Ark of the Covenant went ahead of them.  It was the harvest season, and the Jordan was overflowing its banks.  But as soon as the feet of the priests who were carrying the Ark touched the water at the river’s edge, the water above that point began backing up a great distance away at a town called Adam, which is near Zarethan.  And the water below that point flowed on to the Dead Sea until the riverbed was dry.  Then all the people crossed over near the town of Jericho.  Meanwhile, the priests who were carrying the Ark of the Lord’s Covenant stood on dry ground in the middle of the riverbed as the people passed by.  They waited there until the whole nation of Israel had crossed the Jordan on dry ground.  Joshua 3:1-17

About forty years prior to this account of crossing the Jordan, Israel had a similar experience.  In the exodus from Egypt[1] the fledgling nation was being pursued by Pharaoh’s army.  They were trapped between mountains on two sides, the Red Sea in front, and a professional killing force closing from the rear.  In panic the people cried out, and God saved them by blowing a clear path through the deep waters; the people walked to safety on dry land.

Fast forward forty years and there was no imminent death threat from which to run, only the challenge of God’s command to move forward.  They were to cross Jordan and begin possessing the Promised Land, and God provided a dry walk across an overflowing spring-flooded river…again!

Generally speaking, it is never the Red Seas that trip us up; it’s natural to cry to God for salvation when pressed on either side, and no way out.  Rather it is the Jordan Rivers of ease that make us doubt.  Obeying God to move forward dredges up all sorts of excuses as to why we could just settle right here.  The plague of today is like the Red Sea – there are plenty of prayers going up!  The question becomes what will happen tomorrow when the Red Sea plague is defeated?

For You Today

There is only one right answer when God says MOVE NOW, and that answer requires no words…only the first step…that’s when you’ll see dry land ahead.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!

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Title Image:  Pixabay.com      Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation©

For another post Crossing on Dry Ground see Stand Still and See

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[1] Exodus 14

Caleb

[i][ii]

Tuesday, March 19, 2019

Two of the men who had explored the land, Joshua son of Nun and Caleb son of Jephunneh, tore their clothing.  They said to all the people of Israel, “The land we traveled through and explored is a wonderful land!  And if the Lord is pleased with us, he will bring us safely into that land and give it to us.  It is a rich land flowing with milk and honey.  Do not rebel against the Lord, and don’t be afraid of the people of the land.  They are only helpless prey to us!  They have no protection, but the Lord is with us! Don’t be afraid of them!”  But the whole community began to talk about stoning Joshua and Caleb.  Then the glorious presence of the Lord appeared to all the Israelites at the Tabernacle.  And the Lord said to Moses, “How long will these people treat me with contempt?  Will they never believe me, even after all the miraculous signs I have done among them?  I will disown them and destroy them with a plague. Then I will make you into a nation greater and mightier than they are!”  But Moses objected.  “What will the Egyptians think when they hear about it?” he asked the Lord.  “They know full well the power you displayed in rescuing your people from Egypt.  Now if you destroy them, the Egyptians will send a report to the inhabitants of this land, who have already heard that you live among your people.  They know, Lord, that you have appeared to your people face to face and that your pillar of cloud hovers over them.  They know that you go before them in the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night.  Now if you slaughter all these people with a single blow, the nations that have heard of your fame will say, ‘The Lord was not able to bring them into the land he swore to give them, so he killed them in the wilderness.’  “Please, Lord, prove that your power is as great as you have claimed.  For you said, ‘The Lord is slow to anger and filled with unfailing love, forgiving every kind of sin and rebellion.  But he does not excuse the guilty.  He lays the sins of the parents upon their children; the entire family is affected—even children in the third and fourth generations.’  In keeping with your magnificent, unfailing love, please pardon the sins of this people, just as you have forgiven them ever since they left Egypt.”  Then the Lord said, “I will pardon them as you have requested.  But as surely as I live, and as surely as the earth is filled with the Lord’s glory, not one of these people will ever enter that land.  They have all seen my glorious presence and the miraculous signs I performed both in Egypt and in the wilderness, but again and again they have tested me by refusing to listen to my voice.  They will never even see the land I swore to give their ancestors.  None of those who have treated me with contempt will ever see it. But my servant Caleb has a different attitude than the others have.  He has remained loyal to me, so I will bring him into the land he explored.  His descendants will possess their full share of that land.  Numbers 14:6-24

When Moses sent a dozen men into the Promised Land as an advance scouting party, ten of them came back with a fear-filled report that the land was too strongly-defended to possess; they were intimidated and advised Moses to take a pass on God’s plan.  Caleb and Joshua brought the minority report that the land was everything God had said it was, and they should press on.  Standing as two against ten could not have been fun, but the real party started when the whole nation wanted to stone Caleb and Joshua.

A millennium-and-a-half later the Apostle Paul would remind the Church at Corinth[iii] that the nation’s fear and lack of faith consigned them to desert wandering for 40 years, the bodies of all the unbelievers scattered all over that wasteland. 

The point isn’t strained here; Caleb stood with Joshua, and the two stood before the whole nation, pleading with them to trust the LORD.  It wasn’t easy, especially with the death threats…but, in the end the nation with rocks in their hands wandered for the next 40 years, until all the unbelievers died-off.  Caleb and Joshua, on the other hand, were still strong four decades later, leading the new generation into Canaan-land.

For You Today

Faith in God is always confirmed and vindicated, no matter how many votes are cast with the majority report of unbelief.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day.

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[i] Title Image:   Pixabay.com

[ii] Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture quotations are from The New Living Translation©

[iii] 1 Corinthians 10:5

Why?

[1]

Monday, November 6, 2017

So Joshua called together the twelve men he had chosen—one from each of the tribes of Israel.  He told them, “Go into the middle of the Jordan, in front of the Ark of the Lord your God.  Each of you must pick up one stone and carry it out on your shoulder—twelve stones in all, one for each of the twelve tribes of Israel.  We will use these stones to build a memorial.  In the future your children will ask you, ‘What do these stones mean?’  Then you can tell them, ‘They remind us that the Jordan River stopped flowing when the Ark of the Lord’s Covenant went across.’  These stones will stand as a memorial among the people of Israel forever.”   Joshua 4:4-7^(NLT)

Remarkable events demand to be remembered.  Moses had walked into Pharaoh’s palace and uttered the words God had given him at the burning bush, let my people go. Months later, after 10 plagues and God breaking the stubbornness of Egypt, the Israelites picked up the bones of Joseph and shook 400 years of slavery’s dust off their feet, and headed for Sinai.  Their target was crossing the Jordan into the Promised Land. 

And now the moment was at hand.  As they’d left Egypt, with God dividing the waters of the Red Sea, and His people walking on dry land into the wilderness, they now left the wilderness as God moved back the waters of Jordan.  Only this time God instructed Moses to build a memorial with the stones of Jordan.  The express purpose of this memorial was like any other – to remember and re-tell the story.  The LORD wanted this passage from slavery into freedom told faithfully to all generations.

If you’ve ever had the privilege of parenting you have definitely heard that question, “WHY?”  Inquiring minds want to know the significance of why they’re being forced to go to Grandma’s house, or to school, or made to do anything at all.  Why?  And if you’ve ever run out of patience and been tempted to say, because I said so…don’t do it! 

Why?   I’m glad you asked; because every time a child utters that word there is a teachable moment at hand.  Here’s Paul’s answer to the age old question, WHY:

These things happened to them as examples for us.  1 Corinthians 10:11a^(NLT)

The old saying isn’t strained here; one picture is worth a thousand words.  The freedom memorial built of twelve uncut river stones was a monument to the faith of a people willing to struggle through the wilderness – both a physical wilderness through which they stumbled in a 40 year detour, and the wilderness of faith storms building them into a nation ready to be the descendants of Abraham, and the inhabitants of God’s chosen center of the universe.

Becoming God’s person or nation; THAT is a story well-worth the telling, and hearing!

For You Today

Do you have a story of faith worth telling?  If you’ve been to the crossroad where you had to choose to follow Christ or live your life in selfishness, you’ve got a pile of stones raised up in a river of faith to talk about.   You can help someone else know WHY!

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road…have a blessed day!

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[1] Title Image: Courtesy of Pixabay.com