Exodus: That was the easy part?

When Moses and the people arrived at Sinai, God told them, "You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt and how I carried you on eagles' wings and brought you to myself." On eagles' wings? That sounds so easy. Reality check - didn't they find themselves trapped between an angry army and the sea, run out of water, march across barren land, then find only bitter water and run out of food for a while? That doesn't sound like riding on eagles' wings to me.

But, if from God's perspective that really is riding on eagles' wings, then what I am supposed to learn from this? Maybe its a matter of trust. Maybe its the same situation I often had with my children when they were small. To my children it didn't feel like they were being taken care of when the big dog came barking from next door or loud explosions went off at New Years. It surely seemed inexplicably frustrating that they couldn't reach the cereal or juice - hence concluding that they were starving. Yet they never were outside of my care and protection. 

Maybe from a heavenly Father's point of view, Israel never was outside of his care and protection even when they saw the army coming or ran out of water. Maybe today I can remember that and live like my disasters, fears and worries will not put me outside of my Father's care.

Lord's Prayer: Father in Heaven

For years I breezed through the first line of this prayer as if they were the first words to a friend on the phone. "Hi, how are you?" "Hey, whats up, John?" It was just the line Jesus used to jump start the prayer, right? After all you have to start somewhere. I overlooked the depth of the words that Jesus chose, words that seem to hark back to creation.

In Genesis 1, God is presented to us as powerful, distant, and awe-inspiring. He stands at a distance and orchestrates creation "ex-nihilo". Whatever our understanding of Genesis 1, we have some form of incomprehensibility and otherness mixed with it. In Genesis 2, God is presented with his hands in the dirt and breathing into our nostrils. He is close, intimate and connected. We see a personal side we did not see in Genesis 1.

So Genesis begins with "in heaven" - the powerful and otherly God followed by "father" - the personal God. We are reminded of both his essence and his power when we pray to "our father who is in heaven."

Jesus had a way of saying so much even when he said so little.