Exodus 24:15-18 Then Moses went up into the mountain, and a cloud covered the mountain. The glory of the LORD abode on Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it six days; and on the seventh day He call to Moses out of the midst of the cloud. The sight of the glory of the LORD was like a consuming fire on the top of the mountain in the eyes of the children of Israel. And Moses went into the midst of the cloud as he went up into the mountain; and Moses was on the mountain forty days and forty nights.
Patience is one of those things… so hard to learn it… so hard to practice it faithfully in our daily walk. It’s one of of those things I truly wish we didn’t have to learn — but God requires it of us! As I was reading through this passage again in Exodus, it dawned on me that Moses sat on the mountain for six entire days before the Lord spoke to him. He had to patiently wait for the Lord for six days!
So often we think we can just do as we please with our lives and then come running to God for a few minutes of prayer and get an answer right away but I don’t believe it is always that simple. Even Moses needed to be prepared for six full days in order to be able experience the awesome presence of the Lord! If Moses had to wait six days – then it should not surprise us if we need to wait 60 days, 60 months or even 60 years for the Lord to prepare us to receive His blessing!
The funny thing is as I’m writing this devotional, my daughter is clinging to me, insisting “Abba, hold me! Hold me now!” And I’m saying to her, “Elianna, just wait a couple minutes and let me finish writing this devotional and I will give you a treat!”
Hmmm… perhaps the Lord is saying to us today — Be patient my child, if you wait on me I will give you a treat!
Be encouraged! The Lord is preparing us for great things. Spend more time seeking Him and worshipping Him. Keep waiting at His feet. He will meet us! There’s so much work to be done.
Copyright 1999-2024 Worthy Devotions. This devotional was originally published on Worthy Devotions and was reproduced with permission.
How to display the above article within the Worthy Suite WordPress Plugin.
[worthy_plugins_devotion_single_body]As we enter a New Year, remember the one constant true for everyone, rich or poor, male or female: each of us is given 8,760 hours in a Gregorian calendar year. That is, 1,440 minutes a day, or 525,600 minutes a year. Sounds like a lot, yet have you noticed how time flies these days?
Persecution and serious trials were regular fare for the early followers of Messiah. Apostle Paul who was stoned and left for dead [Acts 14:19] was not exaggerating when he affirmed, "Through much tribulation we must enter the kingdom of God."
Our life, the life of faith, is pervaded by paradox. Life faces us with apparently irreconcilable conditions and realities that we struggle to understand and integrate, sometimes throughout an entire lifetime. The Lord himself exemplifies this reality in his dual identity as the expressed image of God and a fully human male who suffered the worst consequences of sin...without deserving them. We live daily within the paradox of God's perfect holiness and our fundamental human imperfection, constantly needing to accept His grace as we strive toward His perfection.
Throughout the history of the modern state of Israel, there have been accounts of angelic interventions protecting Israeli soldiers in the midst of intense warfare. One instance recounted by an Israeli military historian after the 1973 Yom Kippur war, describes an Israeli soldier in the Sinai taking captive an entire Egyptian column and leading them to where the Israeli troops were. The Egyptian commander was asked why he and his men gave themselves up to the lone Israeli soldier. He responded with surprise, ”One soldier? There were thousands of them.”
During 1941 the United States and Japan were in negotiations to resolve their difference as the rest of the world was at war. The special delegation of Japanese ambassadors, ostensibly sent on this “peace” mission, arrived shortly before the massive surprise attack on Pearl Harbor in which 2,403 Americans were killed, 1143 were wounded, eighteen ships were sunk or grounded, and 300 planes destroyed or damaged. President Franklin Roosevelt called it a “date which will live in infamy.”
The world these days is full of bad news, with tensions growing in the Middle East, economies on the brink of collapse, and nature constantly adding to the chaos with one disaster after another. It's a time of trouble all right, and for us believers it may sometimes be hard to believe – but it never is as bad as it seems. Let me illustrate with a joke I like to share with my messages.
When I’m dealing with what is beyond a normal, average trial, I need to muster a more militant attitude, and I remind myself of this promise; the Lord has given me authority to TREAD upon the enemy … to walk in His victory over every trial and tribulation that life brings.