The Republic of Congo launched a 2.5 million acre tree planting project for US$2.5 billion over tens years that will help the African environment and add 50,000 jobs. Sounds like a great idea. See full Congo launches large-scale tree-planting programme story originally at Yahoo! News.
Author Archives: WhittleThinker
God Leads Israelites to Red Sea (Ex 13)
Bible Summary:
On the day the Israelites are set free, Moses tells them how to remember that day every year going forward by sacrificing first-born animals and not eating leavened bread. Moses takes Joseph’s mummified body as they had promised many centuries before and leads them through the desert toward the Red Sea instead of by a shorter route. God did not want the Israelites to change their minds and return to Egypt when they learn they have to fight. God leads them with a pillar of cloud during the day and pillar of fire to light the way at night.
My Thoughts:
Backs Against the Wall: God knows the Egyptians are going to pursue. He also knows the Israelites, even with the excitement from their new freedom, would not have the confidence after centuries of slavery to fight the Egyptians unless He backed them against the wall of the Red Sea.
Maybe this is why God sometimes makes our struggles so difficult, so we too build confidence to do greater things in the future.
The Pillars: I have participated in Komen Races for the Cure with 55,000 others in a river of people coursing their way through downtown Columbus, so I can only imagine what 2.4 million Israelites looked liked as they escaped from Egypt. With no cell phones, Internet, TV, radio, or even walkie-talkies, it must have been extremely difficult to communicate with such a large crowd, so God devised the pillars of cloud and fire so they could all see the way.
Sometimes I wish God would show me a large sign to guide my life in the right direction, instead He sends small signals and some people at the right time. You just have to use your intuition, which is God speaking within you.
Saint Francis of Assisi
Saint Francis lived in Italy during the Dark Ages from 1182 to 1226. He was born into wealth and lived a carefree adolescence singing with the troubadours. After a couple stints of military duty, a serious illness, and a vision of Jesus telling him to repair his church which was falling into ruin, Saint Francis renounced his wealth, became a beggar, preached in the streets, and repaired old churches.
Many people followed Saint Francis and he ultimately established the Franciscan Order. As his health declined and his eyesight progressively worsened, he returned to his ascetic life in a hut and communed with nature. Birds were said to have landed on his arms and eaten from his hands. Later in life during a 40-day fast, he received the stigmata, wounds on his wrists, ankles, head and side that mimicked those of Christ. Learn more about Saint Francis of Assisi at Wikipedia.
Why is St. Francis one of my favorite people? To the dismay of his family and friends, Saint Francis renounced his wealth and did what Jesus called him to do. He accepted a hard life, one of an ascetic and his health suffered for it, but also a life of great purpose. This simple man initiated an order of the church that continues to do great things even to this day – 785 years after his death. Everything that Saint Francis did was out of love, so much so that even animals did not fear him. He is considered the patron saint of animals and the environment.
So, when people question what you are doing with your life, even if it flies in the face of convention, tell them the story of Saint Francis. Follow Christ’s example and you too can make a difference for hundreds of years to come, even if just through your own family. Use the lyrics of the Prayer of Saint Francis to guide you.
Prayer of Saint Francis
Make me a channel of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me bring your love.
Where there is injury, your pardon, Lord,
And where there’s doubt, true faith in you.
Make me a channel of your peace.
Where there’s despair in life, let me bring hope.
Where there is darkness only light,
And where there’s sadness ever joy.
Oh Master, grant that I may never seek,
So much to be consoled as to console.
To be understood as to understand,
To be loved as to love with all my soul.
Make me a channel of your peace.
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
In giving of ourselves that we receive,
And in dying that we’re born to eternal life.
———————————————
Cool video by Angelina in Assisi on YouTube.
Another version by Sarah MacLachlan.
Passover (Ex 12)
Bible Summary:
God instructs Moses and Aaron about the Passover Festival. The Israelites are to kill a young goat or lamb and mark their doors with the blood, roast the animal and eat all of it, and be ready to travel. No one is to leave their house until morning.
That night God sends the Angel of Death through Egypt to kill every first-born son, except in houses marked with blood that are past over without harm. The king and his officials awaken to loud cries throughout the land. He sends for Moses and demands the Israelites get out. The Egyptian people urge the Israelites to leave quickly before God does anything else.
The Israelites grab their unleavened dough and ask the Egyptians for jewelry and clothes, and so carry away the wealth of Egypt. About 600,000 men, not including women and children, set out on foot, free after 430 years of slavery in Egypt.
My Thoughts:
Worst Epidemic Ever: The description of Passover makes me believe an epidemic from dead animals contaminating the Nile River struck Egypt. God saved the Israelites by teaching them to roast their meat instead of eating it raw or boiled and marking healthy houses. The latter makes me believe the plague was worse than the Black Death that killed 30-60% of Europe’s population between 1348 and 1350 (See full Black Death story on Wikipedia). Normally citizens will mark unhealthy homes to stay away during an epidemic, but Egypt’s epidemic must have been so bad that the Israelites marked just the safe houses.
Jacob’s Numerous Descendants: The seventy Hebrews that entered Egypt with Jacob grew to about 2.4 million descendants freed by Moses, assuming the 600,000 men were pared with a like number of women and children made up half the total number. This seems incredibly high, but a little estimation shows that roughly six children per family over 21 generations grew to the large number of Hebrews.
See what an impact you can have through your children! Be sure love them dearly so they carry it on for generations to come.
Moses Warns of First-born Sons (Ex 11)
Bible Summary:
God tells Moses he is sending his last punishment on Egypt and to tell the people of Israel to ask their Egyptian neighbors for gold and silver jewelry. Moses warns the king of Egypt that at midnight every first-born son in Egypt will die, from the heir to the throne down to the animals. But, the king still refuses to let the Israelites leave his country.
My Thoughts:
Negotiator: The idea that Moses existed and negotiated the release of the Israelites must be true. Why else would the Egyptians, who had kept the Hebrews as slaves for 430 years, allow them to leave, even if there had been a volcano-induced plague (see last bible study post)? If anything, the Egyptians would have forced the slaves to clean up all the dead animals and get back to work.
The plague must have impacted the Egyptians who lived along the Nile more than the Israelites who lived on the eastern part of the delta in Goshen. Moses could have taken this opportunity to free his people.
The story of Moses growing up as part of the royal family must be true as well, since he had the nerve to negotiate the release. As a slave, he would have never had the courage stand up to the royal family. Any way you look at it, the events in Egypt were truly miracles how they played out exactly as it needed to free the Israelites.
Stubborn King: Why in the world would the king sacrifice the first-born sons of Egypt, including his own, after Moses proved God could make it happen with all of the other plagues, darkness, and hail? By this time in Egypt’s history, the king had come from a long line of powerful Pharaohs who believed they were gods. So, either the king was arrogant enough to challenge the first-born warning or this is an embellished story of a plague that wiped out many people, especially the young, including the important first-born sons.
Okay, even after all my scientific theory about the events around the release of the Israelite, I still like the bible miracle story better.
NEWS: Leonardo da Vinci paints his way to the UK
London’s National Gallery is showing nine master paintings and dozens of drawings in the “Leonardo da Vinci: Painter at the Court of Milan” exhibit now through February 5, 2012. Read the complete Reuters story at Leonardo da Vinci gets celebrity billing with UK show.
Moses and God Punish Egypt (Ex 6: 28-30, 7, 8, 9, 10)
Bible Summary:
God sends Moses and Aaron to speak to the king of Egypt several times with successively harsher punishments against the Egyptians, but the king is very stubborn and will not let the Israelites leave to worship God in the desert. The punishments are:
- Aaron makes a snake with his walking stick. The king’s magicians do the same, but Aaron has his snake eat theirs.
- Aaron turns the Nile River into blood. All the fish die and begin to stink. The king’s magicians also turn water red so he refuses to listen to Moses.
- Seven days later God sends a plague of frogs, but the magicians make frogs come on land too. The king asks Moses and Aaron to pray the frogs away. The next day all the frogs die and the Egyptians pile them in heaps, but the king becomes stubborn again.
- God sends a plague of gnats, but this time the magicians fail to match His power. The king still remains stubborn.
- God sends a plague of flies and all of Egypt is brought to ruin, except for the land of Goshen where the Israelites live. The king tells Moses to sacrifice animals to their God right there. Moses rejects him saying the Egyptians would be offended and stone them to death, so they must travel three days into the desert to worship God. The king agrees but reneges after the flies are gone.
- God sends terrible disease on the Egyptian animals and many die, but He spares the Israelite animals. The king still remains stubborn.
- God sends ash that creates boils on the Egyptians. The magicians do not even show up this time since they are covered in boils. The king still will not listen to Moses about releasing the Israelites.
- God sends a heavy hailstorm on Egypt but spares the Israelites in Goshen. The king agrees to set them free, that is, until the hail stops.
- Moses warns the king of impending locusts. The king’s officials complain to him about letting the Israelites go since Egypt is already in ruin. The king only agrees to let the men leave to worship, so Moses leaves the king and God brings on the locust to eat all the remaining plants. The king asks Moses to take away the locust but again will not let the Israelites go.
- Then, God sends darkness over Egypt for three days, though the Israelites have light. The king now agrees to allow the people to leave, but not their animals, so Moses asks the king to provide animals for sacrifice. The king becomes angry and sends Moses away with a warning that he will die if he shows up again.
My Thoughts:
Nature’s Role with the Israelites: It sounds like nature got the Israelites into slavery, due to the seven-year famine of Joseph’s time, and nature got them out. These chapters read like a huge volcano erupted near Egypt, which could explain the blood red river and dead fish, followed by gnats and flies, the death of the animals from drinking the diseased water, boils on the people from ash, and even the hail as the volcanic emission caused dramatic weather changes.
Read about similar results from Mount Tambora exploding in Indonesia in 1815 and the “Year Without a Summer” in 1816 from Wikipedia. Makes you pause at how destructive nature can be.
Justice: It is easy to get on the side of the Israelites in this story since they had been in bondage for hundreds of years, but it is hard to believe that God would kill so many innocent Egyptians because of their tyrannical, unbending king. This is why I am leaning towards the natural disaster explanation, though I have not searched for any historical proof of this theory.
NEWS: Fiber is good for teens too
It seems that fiber is good for teens too. Those who eat more fruits, vegetables and whole grains are less likely to contract diabetes and heart disease. Learn more from the Fiber-loving teens have lower heart, diabetes risks story at Reuters.
God Promises to Save the Israelites (Ex 5: 22-23, 6: 1-13)
Bible Summary:
Moses complains to God that the king of Egypt is treating the Israelites worse since their request and God is doing nothing to help. God says he will force the king to let them go, even drive them out of Egypt. He reaffirms His promise of the land of Canaan to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and that He will save their descendents, the Israelites.
Moses conveys God’s promise to the Israelites but they do not listen because of their broken spirits from cruel slavery. God tells Moses to talk to the king again, but Moses complains that the king will never listen. God commands Moses and Aaron to tell the Israelites and the king that He ordered them to lead the Israelites out of Egypt.
My Thoughts:
Broken Spirit: A long period of cruel behavior can crush someone’s spirit to the point where they feel they cannot believe in anything. Losing faith is not easily rekindled. It takes baby steps and proof of success before a hint of belief can take root and then be nourished.
God Sends You: Everyone thinks God should show up and solve all the world’s problems, but He has – in you! He sent you to solve the world’s problems. I know it sounds like a heavy burden, but you in this case is plural. God asks everyone to work together to resolve the world’s ills. Collectively, we can make tremendous changes for good as long as we let love guide the way. Please commit yourself to moving the world in a positive direction, even in little ways.