Rock Bottom: Provision
Yesterday, we turned to the story of the Israelite’s Exodus from Egypt and their struggles to trust God’s provision in the wilderness. We traced their wilderness journey, the countless ways God proved faithful, and really considered what it would have been like to walk in their shoes. As they struggled to trust that God would provide the water and food for them they needed, the Israelite’s asked a question that is at the heart of so many of our journeys, “Is the Lord really with us or not?” Pastor Clare invited us to look back on our own lives and think about the stories we could tell if asked that question ourselves. How have we seen God provide for us? God’s provision sometimes comes in the most unexepected and seemingly impossible of ways, just as it did in our story yesterday when God brought forth the water the Israelite’s so needed from a rock.
As Pastor Clare and 17 of our high school students and 8 other adults prepare to leave on their mission trip to Birmingham, Alabama this coming week, she also reflected on the American Exodus story, as she has been studying Martin Luther King Jr.’s writings, sermons and speeches in preparation for their trip. She shared excerpts of King’s speech, Our God is Marching On, delivered in front of the steps of the Alabama courthouse after King and some 8000 fellow marchers had completed the 54 mile march from Selma to Montgomery on March 25th, 1965. Our God continues to March On, and is calling us to follow him faithfully on the journey, trusting that like the generations before us, God will provide what is needed along the way when we trust him enough to ask for his help.
Here are links to things Pastor Clare referenced in her sermon yesterday, if you would like to dig deeper this week.
Scripture - Exodus 17:1-7 (Pastor Clare laid out the Exodus story that led up to this point in yesterday’s sermon taken from pieces of Exodus 1-16.)
Map of the Exodus Route taken from the Common English Study Bible
Our God is Marching On, Martin Luther King, Jr., March 25th, 1965
A Testament of Hope, The Essential Writings and Speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr. - Edited by James M. Washington
