Moses' Father-in-laws Blessing Ex. 4:18

3/13/2008 8:30 AM

SPIRITUAL DIARY

My Worship Time               Focus:  Moses’ father-in-laws blessing.

Bible Reading & Meditation                     Reference:  Exodus 4:18

            Message of the verse:  “18 ¶  Then Moses departed and returned to Jethro his father-in-law and said to him, "Please, let me go, that I may return to my brethren who are in Egypt, and see if they are still alive." And Jethro said to Moses, "Go in peace.’”

            There as some things about this verse that I am not sure that I understand as well as I should.  It seems that Moses did not tell Jethro the real reason as to why he wanted to go back to Egypt, but told him possibly a secondary reason, and that was concern of his family.  Moses was eighty years old at this point of this story and this must have meant that Jethro was a great deal older than him for he had seven daughters as was told whenever Moses first came to their home.  At any rate Jethro gives his blessing for Moses and his family to leave.  The age thing is something that gets me wondering in this entire story, for I know that when Moses was 120 years old that the Bible says that he still had all of his teeth, and his eyes were still good, but what about the rest of his family did they receive this same blessing too? 

            What was the reason that Moses did not tell Jethro the real purpose of his journey back to Egypt?  Did God instruct him not to tell him?  This seems like it would be highly unlikely, but possible.  Was Moses not willing to talk about the real reason for his trip to Egypt with Jethro out of embarrassment?  This reason seems more likely since Moses was so unsure of himself while talking with God.  Did Moses think that it would be unwise to speak of this subject to Jethro?  I think that that would be the best reason.

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  I want to focus in on why Moses did not tell Jethro his real reason for going back to Egypt, and that is that I think he just did not want to talk about it for he was unsure of how the outcome would turn out.  I know that I have a huge problem in telling people things that I am not sure how they are going to turn out and this has gotten me into some trouble in the past and I would pray that God would give me the grace to correct this problem in the future.  I recognize that this is a huge problem and ask the Lord to give the grace to stop this excessive talking about things when I am not sure of the outcome.

My Steps of Faith for Today:  Seek the grace of God to correct the excessive speaking about things that I am not sure of. I do not want to boast about my strengths but about my weaknesses, and have my life more private with others.

Memory verses for the week:                      2Cor. 12:9-10

9.       And He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.”  Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.

10.   Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with insults, for Christ’s sake; for when I am weak then I am strong.