This Week's Story
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A contemporary high school senior, and slaves fleeing ancient Egypt struggle with life choices!
This Week’s Story relives American history and the Bible through brief inspiring stories presented on mp3 audio recordings and text for reading.
The Dilemma of Choice,
part three
Anne was stressing about her future. “Where am I going to school next year? I want to go from high school to UC Santa Cruz. I’ve been accepted, but there are issues to settle. Mom, you want me to go to Bible School for one year and then move to a good university.”
“Honey, going to Bible school for one year could give you an opportunity to build your knowledge, and understanding of God and the Bible. You would not go for credits or grades or career training.”
Anne replied, “I keep wondering if I will be able to use my future education. I have not chosen what career I want. The subjects I am passionate about will prepare me for jobs that are difficult to find.
“ I am excited about change, making friends, and pursuing questions and experiences. I want to make my own choices, not someone else’s.”
“Anne, usually my greatest inner freedom and strength comes when I dig into the Bible and read it with my whole heart and I talk to God, my father.
“You know the Jews experienced blessing and hard times. They went from being slaves to being free and making an unfamiliar trip across deserts. The heat was extremely high and the temperature had extreme fluctuations.
“Peace and quiet were typically impossible. When they did not like their food or lacked water, many of them complained and rebelled against God and their leader Moses. Their trip turned into a forty-year ordeal to reach Canaan.”
The next few nights Anne read in “Exodus” of the Bible. It detailed the desert trip with its story of gifts from God, trust, rebellion, and punishment. How could the Jews forget how God delivered them from Pharaoh and his soldiers, their times of water thirst and how God provided water? He provided their road map. In front of them the Jews could always see a pillar of cloud by day or a pillar of fire by night. Those were daily reminders that He was caring for them. He had not given up on them.
He came close to doing so when the Jews spread their 600,000 tents in the wilderness at the bottom of the mountains of Sinai. They stayed there about a year so God could teach them. They had no Bible. This was its beginning. Moses was to write God’s laws into a book.
Moses climbed Mt. Sinai and God told Moses that if the people would obey God, they would be His own special nation of priests. He would be close to each one.
When Moses told the people what God said, they replied, “We will do all that the Lord has said.”
Then Moses prepared the people to hear God speak to them. God then spoke the words of the Ten Commandments. These would be the core of God’s teaching to the people.
Moses spoke with God a second time on Mt Sinai. He went into a thick cloud where God showed Himself. Moses was there forty days and forty nights.
The Jews grew impatient. Their pledge to do all that the Lord had told them was broken.
We need one more week to finish our series. We hope that “The Dilemma of Choice” has been thought-provoking. Please join us soon for part four.
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