He came bursting through the door barely able to get his words out. All she could decipher at first was, “We’re leaving!” 

Running from room to room, he scanned each one quickly determining what would be taken and what would be left behind.  She could barely keep up to him and had an even harder time comprehending what he was telling her.  She had never seen such joy and excitement on her husband’s face.  I imagine Abraham must have finally turned to her and said something like this:

“Sarah, I met God today – the living God.  He promised great blessings, unbelievable blessings.  But Sarah, the most incredible blessing is that from us would come a great nation.  Do you know what that means?  It means God is promising that we will have a son.” 

 A son!

This was the one thing Sarah longed for.  In her culture, a woman’s worth was based on her ability to bear a son, an heir for her husband, and Sarah had lived long with the stigma of barrenness.  No matter what joys of life she experienced, they were always dampened by her desire for a child..  I think Sarah must have started pulling clothes out of drawers, emptying every closet.  Most likely she called the realtor and scheduled a yard sale.  Oh, how she wanted a child!  Yet in the midst of the excitement,  she must have paused and asked Abraham this question,

 “I’m willing to leave, but where are we going?  What’s the plan?”  Continue Reading

Eighty years old,

while tending sheep on a wilderness mountain,

he catches a glimpse of a bush on fire.

What holds his attention, what compels his curiosity is that the bush is not consumed.  As Moses moves closer, he hears God speak to him from that bush.  And, what he hears shakes him to the core.  God commissions him to do what seems impossible – to lead the Israelites out of Egypt, to free them from the bondage of slavery.

Certainly God couldn’t expect him to be their deliverer.  Forty years earlier in his prime, it may have been possible.  But not now!

God’s response?  Moses, this time,

“I will be with you.” (Ex. 3:12)

Then God did something for Moses that He had not even done for the great patriarch Abraham, nor his descendants, Isaac and Jacob.  God revealed to Moses His name – “I Am.”   Abraham knew God by a title, “Almighty God” but to Moses, a man whose hopes, dreams, and aspirations had become ashes of despair and resignation, to this man, the Lord revealed His name.

“This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I Am has sent me to you.”’ (Ex. 3:14)

With the name “I Am,” God declares He is a “present tense” God.  He is not just a God of the past who has done great things.  Nor is He just a God of our future, who is the hope of our salvation. 

He is the God of our present.  He is our “present tense” God. Continue Reading