Today's Readings and Stuff == Saturday, 26 January 2019

The last Saturday in December.  A week from today, Lord willing, we will have made it into February.  That's the good part.  The bad part is that the next few days we are expecting to be subject to what the locals call "a Polar Vortex", meaning incredibly cold, horrible cold, weather, and the periods briefly free of the near-zero and sub-zero temps will see more snowfall.  Winter in this Land of the Ice Giants.  Not my every dream come true, I assure you.
Today, 9 hours 51 minutes of "day".  Tomorrow, we gain a further 2 minutes 3 seconds, so at this rate we'll be seeing a "whole" 10 hours by the 31st of the month. Just in time for record setting bitter cold sub-zero and nearly so. 
I was advised on "social media" that one of my cousins, 5 years younger than I in fact, has taken retirement (her employer, a GM assembly plant, is set to shut down in March), she and her husband have sold their house, and they are at this very moment en route to Florida.  I confess to the sin of envy.
But perhaps we are needed here.  Our purpose is not supposed to be our own comfort, but to carry out whatever mission the Lord has assigned.  Be nice if the two coincided, but it doesn't always work that way.  Unfortunately.

Back in my working days, particularly when titled as a project engineer, project manager, and others that implied a good bit of responsibility, we had to deal with a lot of the management fads that came and went.  Most weren't worthless, not totally so anyway, though some approached it closely.  But a few of those had some merit.  I've been pondering one of those this morning:

a sense of urgency

Just a few words, but it captures a lot, or at least it can.  

Now, how often do we  have that sense of urgency in our faith?  How often that urgency to know the Lord and to make Him known?  How urgently do we reach for our Bibles, to fervently and eagerly read the Word, to prayerfully consider what He would have us to know?  And, knowing, to do?

I speak for no one else, and dare not to do so, but in truth I fail in this, regularly.  My fervency is neither consistently growing nor constant.  A terrible thing to confess.  The image of a deer panting for the water simply does not always fit.  Frankly, it's more often when our needs and circumstances are desperate, or felt to be so, that we seek Him.  And it's the recognition of that that moves us.  Not necessarily the reality.

Which is in itself troubling.  Look around at some of the "lesser" areas around you, perhaps in the side of town that has the "projects" for example.  What will you see in profusion in that area?  Take a look some time, Google Maps is a useful tool.  Do  it, or go driving.  What you will find in profusion are a)  bars and beer/wine/cigarettes/lottery outlets and, b) churches.  And I am not sure which group has the greatest effect, for good or ill, on the populations of that area.  (though I have my suspicions).

But the same thing can be found, often, in the not-so-lesser areas.  For that matter, in the "better" areas, there are often far more establishments serving liquor than there are houses of worship.  With effects we may imagine.

If our culture rates the Lord as of less actual import than a good wine or beer or fancy dinner, can the long-term effects be good?  A brief examination of the world answers that.  Are we urgent to address that?  And if the people of God aren't so motivated, do we really think that the worldly will be?

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Today, we take up the book of Exodus.  This is one of those episodes that, realize it or not, affects our world to this very day.

Exodus 1

1Now these are the names of the children of Israel, which came into Egypt; every man and his household came with Jacob.

2Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah,

3Issachar, Zebulun, and Benjamin,

4Dan, and Naphtali, Gad, and Asher.

5And all the souls that came out of the loins of Jacob were seventy souls: for Joseph was in Egypt already.

6And Joseph died, and all his brethren, and all that generation.

7And the children of Israel were fruitful, and increased abundantly, and multiplied, and waxed exceeding mighty; and the land was filled with them.

8Now there arose up a new king over Egypt, which knew not Joseph.

9And he said unto his people, Behold, the people of the children of Israel are more and mightier than we:

10Come on, let us deal wisely with them; lest they multiply, and it come to pass, that, when there falleth out any war, they join also unto our enemies, and fight against us, and so get them up out of the land.

11Therefore they did set over them taskmasters to afflict them with their burdens. And they built for Pharaoh treasure cities, Pithom and Rameses.

12But the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and grew. And they were grieved because of the children of Israel.

13And the Egyptians made the children of Israel to serve with rigour:

14And they made their lives bitter with hard bondage, in mortar, and in brick, and in all manner of service in the field: all their service, wherein they made them serve, was with rigour.

15And the king of Egypt spake to the Hebrew midwives, of which the name of the one was Shiphrah, and the name of the other Puah:

16And he said, When ye do the office of a midwife to the Hebrew women, and see them upon the stools; if it be a son, then ye shall kill him: but if it be a daughter, then she shall live.

17But the midwives feared God, and did not as the king of Egypt commanded them, but saved the men children alive.

18And the king of Egypt called for the midwives, and said unto them, Why have ye done this thing, and have saved the men children alive?

19And the midwives said unto Pharaoh, Because the Hebrew women are not as the Egyptian women; for they are lively, and are delivered ere the midwives come in unto them.

20Therefore God dealt well with the midwives: and the people multiplied, and waxed very mighty.

21And it came to pass, because the midwives feared God, that he made them houses.

22And Pharaoh charged all his people, saying, Every son that is born ye shall cast into the river, and every daughter ye shall save alive.

Exodus 2

1And there went a man of the house of Levi, and took to wife a daughter of Levi.

2And the woman conceived, and bare a son: and when she saw him that he was a goodly child, she hid him three months.

3And when she could not longer hide him, she took for him an ark of bulrushes, and daubed it with slime and with pitch, and put the child therein; and she laid it in the flags by the river's brink.

4And his sister stood afar off, to wit what would be done to him.

5And the daughter of Pharaoh came down to wash herself at the river; and her maidens walked along by the river's side; and when she saw the ark among the flags, she sent her maid to fetch it.

6And when she had opened it, she saw the child: and, behold, the babe wept. And she had compassion on him, and said, This is one of the Hebrews' children.

7Then said his sister to Pharaoh's daughter, Shall I go and call to thee a nurse of the Hebrew women, that she may nurse the child for thee?

8And Pharaoh's daughter said to her, Go. And the maid went and called the child's mother.

9And Pharaoh's daughter said unto her, Take this child away, and nurse it for me, and I will give thee thy wages. And the woman took the child, and nursed it.

10And the child grew, and she brought him unto Pharaoh's daughter, and he became her son. And she called his name Moses: and she said, Because I drew him out of the water.

11And it came to pass in those days, when Moses was grown, that he went out unto his brethren, and looked on their burdens: and he spied an Egyptian smiting an Hebrew, one of his brethren.

12And he looked this way and that way, and when he saw that there was no man, he slew the Egyptian, and hid him in the sand.

13And when he went out the second day, behold, two men of the Hebrews strove together: and he said to him that did the wrong, Wherefore smitest thou thy fellow?

14And he said, Who made thee a prince and a judge over us? intendest thou to kill me, as thou killedst the Egyptian? And Moses feared, and said, Surely this thing is known.

15Now when Pharaoh heard this thing, he sought to slay Moses. But Moses fled from the face of Pharaoh, and dwelt in the land of Midian: and he sat down by a well.

16Now the priest of Midian had seven daughters: and they came and drew water, and filled the troughs to water their father's flock.

17And the shepherds came and drove them away: but Moses stood up and helped them, and watered their flock.

18And when they came to Reuel their father, he said, How is it that ye are come so soon to day?

19And they said, An Egyptian delivered us out of the hand of the shepherds, and also drew water enough for us, and watered the flock.

20And he said unto his daughters, And where is he? why is it that ye have left the man? call him, that he may eat bread.

21And Moses was content to dwell with the man: and he gave Moses Zipporah his daughter.

22And she bare him a son, and he called his name Gershom: for he said, I have been a stranger in a strange land.

23And it came to pass in process of time, that the king of Egypt died: and the children of Israel sighed by reason of the bondage, and they cried, and their cry came up unto God by reason of the bondage.

24And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob.

25And God looked upon the children of Israel, and God had respect unto them.