The Story: Chapter 5 The Bible: Exodus 32-34
The Israelites were indeed a stiff-necked and rebellious people. They were a people who often tried to solve matters in their own way and in their own timing. Listening to the LORD and waiting for the LORD’s timing was not easy for them. We know the story of The Ten Commandments and Moses’ time spent with the LORD on the top of Mount Sinai. We also know the impatience of the Israelites waiting below caused them to engage in the sin of idolatry. As the story unfolds, we see the wrath of God deliver consequences but also provide for a second chance.
Exodus 24:18 and 32:15-16 Moses went into the cloud when he went up the mountain, and Moses was on the mountain forty days and forty nights. … Moses turned and went down from the mountain with the two tablets of the testimony in his hands. The tablets were written on both sides—they were written on the front and on the back. Now the tablets were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God, engraved on the tablets.
Exodus 34:1-2, 4, 27-28 The LORD said to Moses, “Cut out two tablets of stone like the first, and I will write on the tablets the words that were on the first tablets, which you smashed. Be prepared in the morning, and go up in the morning to Mount Sinai, and station yourself for me there on the top of the mountain. … So Moses cut out two tablets of stone like the first; early in the morning he went up to Mount Sinai, just as the LORD had commanded him, and he took in his hand the two tablets of stone. … The LORD said to Moses, “Write down these words, for in accordance with these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel.” So he was there with the LORD forty days and forty nights; he did not eat bread, and he did not drink water. He wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the Ten Commandments.
Second chances almost always require more work and effort. Wrongs must be set right. Repairs must be made. And many times the LORD requires travel down a path of hard work. For Moses it required an additional 40 days and nights with neither food nor water, chiseling by hand a second set of tablets with all the words the LORD commanded. For the Israelites it required 40 years of wandering in the wilderness until generations passed.
Each of us may face our own challenges of setting past wrongs right and repairing what we have damaged. What work or effort will be required to accomplish this? It is different for each of us. All I know for sure is that the LORD will be with us every step of the way.
Today’s Prayer Suggestion: Thank your Heavenly Father for his presence and strength for each daily task.
The devotional Second Chances appeared first on Write From My Heart at
https://writefrommyheartblog.blogspot.com
Email: Dotty Willmon, writefrommyheartblog@gmail.com
The Scriptures quoted are from the NET Bible® http://netbible.com copyright © 1996, 2019 used with permission from Biblical Studies Press, L.L.C. All rights reserved.
General format for WFMH devotionals will follow the pattern of chapters outlined in The Story: The Bible as One Continuing Story of God and His People, M. Lucado & R. Frazee, Zondervan, 2005, 2008, 2011.
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