“A Plan Better than Yours” – Exodus 2:1-9

Exodus 2: 1-9 

“Now a man from the house of Levi went and took as his wife a Levite woman. The woman conceived and bore a son, and when she saw that he was a fine child, she hid him three months. When she could hide him no longer, she took for him a basket made of bulrushes and daubed it with bitumen and pitch. She put the child in it and placed it among the reeds by the river bank. And his sister stood at a distance to know what would be done to him. Now the daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe at the river, while her young women walked beside the river. She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her servant woman, and she took it. When she opened it, she saw the child, and behold, the baby was crying. She took pity on him and said, “This is one of the Hebrews’ children.” Then his sister said to Pharaoh’s daughter, “Shall I go and call you a nurse from the Hebrew women to nurse the child for you?” And Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Go.” So the girl went and called the child’s mother. And Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Take this child away and nurse him for me, and I will give you your wages.” So the woman took the child and nursed him.

Moses’ parents were Hebrew slaves in Egypt. The slave population had flourished and were becoming so numerous that the Egyptians began to fear them. The Egyptians were afraid that they would become so strong that they might join their enemies and fight against them. To prevent this an order was given by the Egyptian Pharaoh that all the boys born to Hebrew slaves were to be thrown into the river.

When Moses was born his mother described him as a beautiful child and could not bear to see him killed. She hid her son to protect him, but as he grew, she realized that she would be unable to keep him hidden and safe. I remember the fear that gripped me when my first son experienced a health problem when he was born. He was losing a lot more weight than normal during the first 24 hours and was refusing to take in fluids. On day two, the nurse explained that there was a possible blockage and they would be keeping him in the nursery so they could try to get him to nurse. If he showed no improvement, they would begin to look for a blockage. Even today, nearly 50 years later the remembrance of that nurse’s visit brings a flood of emotions. I spent the entire day crying and praying for my precious son to be alright. I called family and through tears asked them to pray with me. I fought back fear and leaned on God to provide the answer. Moses’ mother must have felt the same fear I did. I am sure she spent a lot of time praying and thinking about a way to keep her son safe. She did not know if her plan would work, but it did. I feel sure God led her to this plan because He had a plan for Moses. 

Her prayers were more abundantly answered than she had hoped. After being found in a basket on the Nile, Moses was brought to Pharoah’s daughter and she had compassion for him. His older sister realized the princess would need someone to nurse the child and offered to find a nursing Hebrew mother. Not only would her son live but she would be able to keep him with her and safe for many months. Then he would grow up as part of the royal family and not as a slave. The solution God provided for her problem was unexpected and much better than any she had dared to dream.

As I think back over my life, I remember times when I was in despair over a situation where I could see no solution. In desperation, I turned to God in prayer. God has often answered my prayers in unexpected and powerful ways. I am learning that the best and first plan should be to ask God to reveal His plan and then listen and wait.

While using the HEAR method (see below) consider the following questions: 

  • When faced with a seemingly impossible situation, where do you turn for advice and help?
  • What kind of problems do you think are impossible for God to solve in your life? 
Highlight – what words or phrases jump out at you? 
Explain – what does the passage mean? 
Apply – how does the passage intersect with your life today? 
Respond – how is God leading you to respond?

Brenda Erwin
Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

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“Is God Listening?” – Exodus 2:24-25

Exodus 2:24-25

“And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. God saw the people of Israel—and God knew.”

The children of Israel were slaves to the Egyptians, forced to work because the Pharaoh did not like them or was afraid of them. These slaves, tired and insecure, cried out to God with every ounce of energy they had left. Listen, if you are like me, there have been a few times like that in your life. I’ve cried out, “I need your help, God! Are you there? Are you listening?”

These two verses give a powerful description of how all of God’s senses are tuned in to you when you cry out to Him. God is listening when you pray! Look at how many ways God responds to the crisis:

  1. God heard their groaning.
  2. God remembered his covenant. This verse is not suggesting that God forgets. The writer declares that God does not ever forget the promises in His Word. 
  3. God saw the people.
  4. God knew what was happening to them.

Right after this passage is where Moses is born and God prepares to save Israel from captivity.

I don’t know how God will answer your cries for help. But I know that God hears you, sees you, knows what is happening to you, and did not forget every promise He made. Don’t be bashful. Cry out to your Lord for the help you desperately need!

While using the HEAR method (see below) consider the following questions: 
  • Do you pray when you hurt? Genuinely, cry out to God knowing He is the only salvation for your pain?
  • Is there something that we can help you pray for? Leave a comment or email us directly at jon@mybelmont.org
Highlight – what words or phrases jump out at you? 
Explain – what does the passage mean? 
Apply – how does the passage intersect with your life today? 
Respond – how is God leading you to respond?
Pastor Stephen Williams

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“Enter Moses” – Exodus 2:1-25

Use the HEAR method (see below) when reading today’s passage. 
Exodus 2:1-25

“Now a man from the house of Levi went and took as his wife a Levite woman. The woman conceived and bore a son, and when she saw that he was a fine child, she hid him three months. When she could hide him no longer, she took for him a basket made of bulrushes and daubed it with bitumen and pitch. She put the child in it and placed it among the reeds by the river bank. And his sister stood at a distance to know what would be done to him. Now the daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe at the river, while her young women walked beside the river. She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her servant woman, and she took it. When she opened it, she saw the child, and behold, the baby was crying. She took pity on him and said, “This is one of the Hebrews’ children.” Then his sister said to Pharaoh’s daughter, “Shall I go and call you a nurse from the Hebrew women to nurse the child for you?” And Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Go.” So the girl went and called the child’s mother. And Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Take this child away and nurse him for me, and I will give you your wages.” So the woman took the child and nursed him. When the child grew older, she brought him to Pharaoh’s daughter, and he became her son. She named him Moses, “Because,” she said, “I drew him out of the water.”

“One day, when Moses had grown up, he went out to his people and looked on their burdens, and he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his people. He looked this way and that, and seeing no one, he struck down the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. When he went out the next day, behold, two Hebrews were struggling together. And he said to the man in the wrong, “Why do you strike your companion?” He answered, “Who made you a prince and a judge over us? Do you mean to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?” Then Moses was afraid, and thought, “Surely the thing is known.” When Pharaoh heard of it, he sought to kill Moses. But Moses fled from Pharaoh and stayed in the land of Midian. And he sat down by a well.

“Now the priest of Midian had seven daughters, and they came and drew water and filled the troughs to water their father’s flock. The shepherds came and drove them away, but Moses stood up and saved them, and watered their flock. When they came home to their father Reuel, he said, “How is it that you have come home so soon today?” They said, “An Egyptian delivered us out of the hand of the shepherds and even drew water for us and watered the flock.” He said to his daughters, “Then where is he? Why have you left the man? Call him, that he may eat bread.” And Moses was content to dwell with the man, and he gave Moses his daughter Zipporah. She gave birth to a son, and he called his name Gershom, for he said, “I have been a sojourner in a foreign land.”

“During those many days the king of Egypt died, and the people of Israel groaned because of their slavery and cried out for help. Their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God. And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. God saw the people of Israel—and God knew.”

Highlight – what words or phrases jump out at you? 
Explain – what does the passage mean? 
Apply – how does the passage intersect with your life today? 
Respond – how is God leading you to respond?
Photo by Eric Froehling on Unsplash

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“God and Suffering: 4 Questions to Ask, Even When There Aren’t Answers” (guest post)

Today’s devotional is from Logos, a powerful resource for Bible study. It is adapted from the course Counseling Suffering People, taught by Dave Wenzel. It will be not only a great personal resource as you go through difficult times but a tool to help others as they deal with the tension of suffering and faith. 

—-


“Pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks to us in our [conscience], but shouts in our pains. It is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.” C. S. Lewis

As you respond to people, have the [backdrop] of faith questions [as opposed to] faith answers.
The frameworks for understanding suffering are, in a sense, an attempt to answer the questions. Part of the process can be learning to live with these questions in a faith response.

Question 1: What is God’s purpose in this suffering?

We may not know the answer to that, but I will tell you there have been times where I have seen where people were given the answer. I think that’s also true in Scripture. Occasionally, we are allowed to see what God’s purpose was in the situation. When I have a situation where God’s purpose is, in fact, clear, one of the things that I’ll try to do is to use that, as stones by the river that show what God was doing so that when we face a situation where we don’t understand, we can look back and say, “Well, God was at work there, and I have faith that he’ll continue to be at work in the future.”

Question 2: What is God teaching me in this?

After my wife’s death, I was doing parent-teacher conferences at the high school. I was walking around. I [ran into] an individual that I knew. [She] very appropriately asked me how I was doing and what was going on and offered words of support. Then she said to me, “Well, I think essentially God did this to you because he wanted you to be a better counselor.”

I really have to pull away from that. When God teaches us something, He didn’t necessarily do it to us, but He can still use the circumstances to teach. As a teacher myself, I am not necessarily responsible for the events in my students’ lives, but I can use those events to teach them things. It requires their participation, and so this faith backdrop question allows us to enter the process with the people [who] we are working with an openness to the possibility that, in the suffering situation, I can actually learn something.

Question 3: How can we make God’s glory known?

We are invited in Scripture to be partners with God in his unfolding kingdom plan and to make his glory known, and suffering situations offer us that opportunity.

Question 4: When will we respond to God’s love?

The question so many times is: Where is God in the middle of suffering? I really like Philip Yancey’s response to that: Where is the Church? Where are we? We shouldn’t point at the world and say, “Why is suffering occurring?” We should be responding to the suffering. That’s where God’s love is; that’s where God’s grace is, and we can actually participate in that.

  • Commit to the sufferer – “I commit to you that I will pursue to find out what God is doing in the situation.” I will remind people that I am with them through this. 
  • Create an environment of protest – I will, at an appropriate moment with them, protest: this should not have occurred; this is wrong; something bad happened here. And I believe God protests it also.
  • Bring hope to the situation – The person may not be able to hope at that moment for themselves. We are hopeful that we can learn something; we are hopeful that we can make his glory known; we are hopeful that we can respond and help. 
  • Give the gift of silence – During the moment of pain, people rarely want answers. Granted, they ask questions. They will say, “Why?” Why can be an expression of pain, not necessarily a real question. Romans 12:15, “Mourn with those that mourn” is good guidance at this point. At some point, silence is actually the best gift. If you are not sure what to say, don’t say anything. Sit with the person. Never attempt to answer a question that God does not answer.
*This post has been edited for brevity. The full post can be seen by clicking the link in the top line. Jon

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“How Can This Possibly Be Good?” – Romans 8:28

Romans 8:28

“And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.”

This week, we are looking at Joseph’s response to his brothers’ betrayal. They had thrown him into a pit, then, sold him into slavery. In Egypt, he was falsely accused and ended up in prison. How could good come out of all this suffering? But it did! He said to them, “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it as good, to bring about that many people should be kept alive….”

In considering today’s Bible verse and Joseph’s life, I began thinking about my own life.

On December 15, 2014, my husband was diagnosed with Acute Leukemia. This is a disease that often quickly takes the life of its victim. We were offered a “cure” at Emory University Hospital. While there, God gave us the privilege of giving away Bibles to doctors, nurses, and other staff. He also gave us opportunities to share the gospel and the wonderful privilege of seeing two people trust Christ as Savior. God did bring good out of this horrible affliction! But then on, November 14, 2015, my wonderful husband died and went home to be with Jesus, which is good because he is with his Savior!

But what about me, how could this possibly be good for me? I was left alone, in pain, fearful of the future, and grieving.

But then, God’s presence became so real in my life, in a way, that I had never before experienced. Psalm 23 was often on my heart, mind, and lips. I can truly say that when I cried out to Him, He was there! He comforted me. It’s now been five years since my husband went to be with Jesus. I can tell you, that for the most part God has healed me from my grief and grown me spiritually. The verse following today’s passage says that God has predestined us to be conformed to the image of His Son. God uses even very difficult things in our lives to bring about the “good” of making us more like Jesus. I want that in my life, how about you?

While using the HEAR method (see below) consider the following questions: 
  • What are some really hard things that have happened in your life, where you can look back and see that God has used them for good?
  • What scripture, circumstance, or person has God used to bring good out of the hard things in your life?
  • How is God going to work the good in bad situations (Jacob was on the run from his uncle and brother) potential to lose his family and possessions because of his own actions?  

Highlight – what words or phrases jump out at you? 

Explain – what does the passage mean? 
Apply – how does the passage intersect with your life today? 
Respond – how is God leading you to respond?
Bev McBride, LifeGroup and Grief Share facilitator
Photo by Kat J on Unsplash

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“What to Do When God Messes Up Your Plans” – Psalm 33:10

Psalm 33:10

“The Lord brings the counsel of the nations to nothing;
he frustrates the plans of the peoples.”

Life can be overwhelming. Most of us truly struggle with not being able to be in complete control of our lives every second. The lack of control can cause anxiety and fear, which leads to doubt and a terrible attitude. No one likes to feel out of control with the lack of ability to decide what to do, or how to do it, or when to do it, or why to do it. People love control because control creates a feeling of safety and security. Even if that control ultimately leads to brokenness and heartache, people love the few seconds of control, even though it’s simply an illusion. 

The Psalmist writes how God brings the plans of the nations to nothing. This might seem harsh, but it’s truly glorious because Jesus is better. God’s plans lead us straight to Jesus every time, which means love, purpose, life, salvation, and so much more. God’s plans might frustrate us at the moment because we don’t understand the complete picture, but we must remember that Jesus is better. We must deny ourselves, submit to God, and enjoy Jesus. Our plans are absolutely nothing compared to the plans that God has for you and me. 

My fellow brothers and sisters, please remember that Jesus is better than any plan that you might have. Honestly, I truly struggle at times to deny self, submit to God, and enjoy Jesus. I try my hardest to hold onto my plans because I believe that I am better, however, the only constant element of my plans is failure. I am a control freak because I don’t want to fail at anything. The biggest thing right now that God is teaching me is that I only fail when I believe I have the ability to be in control of all. God has shown me, I can never fail when Jesus is in control.


While using the HEAR method (see below) consider the following questions: 

  • What areas do you find it difficult to hand over control to God? 
  • Can you share a time when you surrendered control and saw God do something better? 
Highlight – what words or phrases jump out at you? 
Explain – what does the passage mean? 
Apply – how does the passage intersect with your life today? 
Respond – how is God leading you to respond?
Macon Jones, Student and Young Adult Pastor
Photo by Mat Reding on Unsplash

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