Trusting a God Who Moves

Ecclesia is doing a series titled God is Moving. This is the first one in the series and a really good one.

The big takeaway with this one is that, if we start trusting God before knowing why things happen, it's better than if God gave us all the answers before we trusted Him -- if He did that, we'd still be left without the peace of trusting Him. That's really what we long for anyway, right -- peace?

Something else that hit me is that we tend to make a god out of things we want, or at least attribute them to God being pleased with us. If I'm not healthy or getting richer, than I must be doing something to make God mad. Or flip it -- if I am super healthy or have been very blessed financially, God is pleased with me. But if those things are suddenly taken from me, I must have made God mad.

Both of those are folly of course, but at the bottom of it, that's probably how most of us view God -- the great Gift-giver. God does give good gifts of course ("Every good and perfect gift is from above..."), but He is so much bigger than that. If all God is to us is blessings and good things, then we have missed Him entirely. And when those things are gone, what does God say? I Am. I Am with you. I Am enough. 

Here is Trusting a God Who Moves, by Joseph Barkley, based on Exodus 3 - 4:17.

Notes:

• How can I trust God when things are unstable or unsafe?
• God says, "I am with you."
• God does extra-ordinary things in ordinary circumstances
• Burning bush
• The answer to a lot of our questions to God is I will be with you.
• Moses asks God His name
• Names were incredibly significant, especially attached to deities
• It was believed that if you knew a deity's real name, you had some persuasive power of them
• God says, "I Am who I Am."
• People at that time attached things they wanted with deities
• Fertility, crops, rain, sun, money, etc.
• If you weren't getting what you wanted, you weren't pleasing the god of that thing.
• In this context, God just says, "I Am."
• We do the same thing: attach God to finances and health
• We act like, if we aren't getting the things we want, God must not be happy with us
• God says I am bigger than those things.
• Moses essentially tells God he can't do it
• This is derived from his past failures
• For every one of Moses' rebuttals/ concerns, God essentially says, "I am with you."
• Moses eventually says, "Please send someone else."
• He became less impressed with God and more impressed with his fears
• God gets angry and says He's going to do it anyway, and Moses is going with Him. He also offers Aaron and the staff.
• We need to trust Who is moving before we find out why
• Proverbs 3:5 (MSG): "Trust God from the bottom of your heart; don't try and figure everything out on your own."
• God will ask us to trust Him before we know all of the answers
• We have to begin with this
• Philippians 1:6 "...he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus."
• Jesus echo's God's words..."And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."