Bible Thumper

I've been reading through Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers the past couple of weeks and I have been surprised at some of what I read about Moses.  I mean, I never thought I had anything in common with him but the more I learn the more I see the humanity in him that is similar to my own.

                                 

Of course we all know he lost his temper and killed a man.  Now, I have never murdered anyone in that sense, but boy howdy do I have a temper on me!!  I'm not very good at keeping my mouth shut either which tends to get me into lots of trouble ;)

Speaking of mouths...Moses tended to bumble his words.  So much so that he told the Lord he couldn't do what was asked of him because of his "faltering lips."  Again, I can relate! I have some wire or something broken between my brain and my lips and I have soooo much trouble speaking what I am thinking!!  Unless of course what I am thinking could get me into trouble...then I seem to have no problem getting it out!

As I read on I see that Moses tended to get really overwhelmed.  Uhhhh...ME TOO!!  Goodness, I am just trying to herd six people, Moses had thousands, but still the feeling is there :)

But boy howdy did Moses have some faith!  And you know what else, the Bible says he was humble. And the coolest thing is that in Numbers 12 Moses' brother and sister, Aaron and Miriam, were kinda getting all snippy and critical of Moses and you know what God said??!!

Well, first He called them all three out for a meeting!  Man, If I had been any of the three, I would have been sweating bullets!!  'Course they didn't really have bullets then...hmmm...

Anyways, God calls them out and says "Hear now My words: If there is a prophet among you, I, the LORD, make Myself known to him in a vision; I speak to him in a dream. Not so with My servant Moses; He is faithful in all My house. I speak with him face to face, Even plainly, and not in dark sayings; And he sees the form of the LORD. Why then were you not afraid To speak against My servant Moses?" So the anger of the LORD was aroused against them, and He departed."

Did you catch that??  He said he might speak to prophets through visions and dreams, but God...GOD speaks to Moses FACE to FACE!!!  And He even does it clearly so Moses can understand!!  OH...MY....GOODNESS!!  How cool is that?!

Oh that God would deem me humble, faithful and someone He would speak to face-to-face!!! 

So many times I get caught up in all of my weaknesses, and boy are there a lot of them!  But the mighty people in the Bible had weaknesses too!  Look at David, Paul, Moses, and a so many more! And do you know what made them mighty....their faith.  

You wanna know something even cooler??  We don't have to conjure up faith in our minds or hearts, God says He is the only one who can give out faith.

How do we get this faith?

By hearing the Word of God.  
Romans 10:17, "So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God."

Now, if you are like me, you might read that and think it's a little cliche.  Then I thought about how I have been reading or hearing the Word of God since I was a kid and I would not say my faith was great.

But sister girl, let me tell you something, reading God's Word is life-changing.  I had heard it for years and it's not that I didn't believe it but I had a morning study most mornings, I went to chuch, taught Bible class, I was in the Word!!

But when I actually took a look I saw that I was in some Word, but it was other people's words!  I read great books by Christian authors and I frequently got a taste of the faithfuless that comes from hearing the Word of God when I worked through Bible studies. But nothing...NOTHING beats just sitting down with your Bible and reading.

I started this challenge to read my Bible through in a year a few months ago and I was not expecting much.  I figured I would slush through the Old Testament and hurry on to the good stuff in the New.  I also thought that since I would be reading so much each day I probably wouldn't remember anything anyways, but I wanted to fulfill my commitment to the challenge.

I can't find the words to tell you how much this has changed my relationship with the Lord.  Ever since I was in my 20's I would hear people thought about how the hungered for God and they were in love with Him and so on.  I thought that sounded really neat and I really wanted that too, but I did not know how.  I loved Him, but I would never say I hungered for Him or craved time with Him.

But when you get to know Him through reading His Word, His living...LIVING WORD, it changes things.  It changes you.  And this little gift inside of your soul begins to grow..and grow.  You begin to have faith that you have no idea was there.  You walk in it, you talk in it, you live in it.

I know some of you are still skeptical.  I can tell you 100% that I was too!  But if there is one single thing I would encourage you to do it would be to read the Word every day.  Just start somewhere and go!  You don't have to know where you are going because God is going to meet you there and you will get to know Him there.  And then one day you will realize that it's not just some typed out words on a bunch of pages, but it is where you go to meet your Savior!!

Oh, and guess what else I've learned?!?!  The Old Testament stories are AMAZING!  :)