Tag: Moses

The Greatest Love Stories

On By sashakatzIn FemmeFuel by Sasha Katz, Love1 Comment

By Sasha Katz

A few weeks ago, I was walking over the bridge looking at the reflection of the morning sky in the canal. In my heart, I thought about the moment God made the creative decision to put reflection on the face of the water. My thoughts about His motivations caused love to overflow in my heart. Creation is the expression of His love. I am water-logged with thoughts about the expressions of His love through creation.

For a long, long time, I have been in love with the romance and depth between Ruth and Boaz. I shut my eyes and think of what it was like for Boaz to wake up with Ruth on the surface below him. Where she was waiting for him to see her. To accept her marriage proposal. In the blue glow of midnight. I think about the months before as she walked Boaz’s fields collecting barley. Under his promise that she would be safe in his meadows. Their love story began in fields where Boaz first noticed Ruth. I have to think that the fields brought out the golden amber in her skin. I have to think that she glanced at him through the waving field that was the distance between them. I think about their love in light of blue of night and amber of day. We express our love in the midst of His creation.

Ten years ago I read Donald Miller‘s Searching for God Knows What. There is this mind blowing chapter that envisions Adam and Eve’s love story. He suggests that Adam was a sort of lonely naturalist naming and categorizing the planet’s animals for about 100 years before he met Eve. All that time, Adam did not find someone like him that he could connect with. When Adam finally sees Eve for the first time, Miller describes that Adam was seeing a person who was like him, only more beautiful, and smarter than him in the ways of relationships. He must have thought to himself that she was perfect, and after a few days of just talking and getting to know each other, they must have fallen deeply in love. This is all among God’s creation. They fell in love in the midst of His creation.

Driving one afternoon, I listened to Dr. Bob Barnes and his guest ponder woman as night and man as day. It’s a deep thought that just like the Spirit hovered over the waters and carved out darkness and light, He carved out of His image woman and man. Just as he named the light and darkness to complete the first day, He created Adam and Eve to make something really good together. Something complete. Out of His creativity and love.

Miller says that sometime after Adam and Eve fell deeply in love, he must have gone on a long walk with God and thanked him. When Boaz expresses his love to Ruth for the first time, he called her blessed of God. That’s a kind vertical and horizontal gratitude. When I look at the sky’s reflection in the water, I am humbled and inspired and amazed and entirely grateful for the expression of His love in creation.

sunflower

Thank you to Tony Gill for Sunflowers at Arne.
I am also inspired by photographs of captured moments of pure love

While You Wait…

On By femmefuelIn FemmeFeatures by Bindu Adai-Mathew, March 20123 Comments

By Bindu Adai-Mathew

Waiting. Waiting for a husband. Waiting on Florida to finally feel like home. Waiting on a good job.  Waiting on the economy to improve. Waiting for our business to pick up.

If I had to describe one of the more prominent themes of my life during my 20s and 30s, it would probably be waiting on God. I can’t remember a time since college when I wasn’t waiting for something in my life to change or improve.

Two weeks ago, my pastor preached on the life of Joseph and how he “failed” and suffered for not his own mistakes, but insteade due to the lies and deceit of first, his own family, and then later, due to the lies of his boss’s wife.  As he preached on Joseph, my pastor promised us a profound comment regarding Joseph’s life and how we should handle life when it treats us so unfairly. After all, who better than Joseph could understand how difficult and challenging it can be to wait on God. Brace yourself, you don’t want to miss this. My pastor said, “Faith is born in a moment but grows over a lifetime.”

Huh?

Yeah. I get it. I felt the same way. As I waited for my pastor’s words of insight, I immediately sat upright in my chair, pen ready to write these words of wisdom. But when he said it, “Faith is born in a moment but grows over a lifetime,” I looked at my pastor confused and honestly, a little disappointed. I was waiting for an epiphany. I was waiting for spiritual insight that I could use to encourage myself during my own time of waiting.

“Faith is born in a moment but grows over a lifetime.”   

But think about it…the moment, we give our life to Jesus, Faith immediately blooms in our hearts like a wildflower. It takes root. But it is the course of our life, that our Faith is tested, tried, and proven.

When we wait on God, we are putting our faith directly into action. After all, it takes faith to believe God will move. It takes faith to believe that things are going to change even though everything in our life may indicate the opposite. It takes faith to trust and wait on God.

And who, out of all our great Biblical forefathers, didn’t have to wait?

  • God promised Abraham a child much earlier, but it wasn’t until he was a 100 years old that Abraham saw his promise fulfilled.
  • Joseph was in his teens when God showed him that he would be a leader and that others would bow and respect him, but he didn’t see it come to reality until he was 30.
  • Scholars estimate that King David was in his preteens when Samuel anointed him King, but he, too, didn’t become king until he was 30.
  • Moses spent 40 years in exile in Midian before God brought him back to lead the people out of Egypt.

Faith is definitely one of the more challenging spiritual muscles to develop…but it is undoubtedly one of the most rewarding. Unfortunately, faith cannot be practiced in hindsight…neither is it 20/20. It 100% requires that same leap of faith that you took when you initially accepted Christ as your savior. It’s believing in God’s promises and what He’s personally revealed or promised to you. It’s rarely easy but the testimony you will have later will be priceless.

So what are you waiting on God for? Have you asked yourself, instead, maybe what He is waiting on you for?