Good morning, brothers and sisters.
Our verse for today comes from Acts 7:23, “Now when he was forty years old, it came into his heart to visit his brethren, the children of Israel.”
Today is my wife’s birthday. Without revealing her age, I will say that she is more wonderful as she begins her second half century than she has ever been. For those of us husbands who have been blessed to have a helper come along side of us as God designed it in Eden, we know that our wives are worthy of all the praise and adoration that we can heap on them every day of the year, and not just on their birthdays. But along the way, certain milestones do garner more attention than others. Some celebrations are accompanied with a certain amount of trepidation as the effects of time and life become more visible. Others are full of reflection and thanksgiving and decades of memories, like the one for my aunt last week celebrating her 90 years on earth. For Moses, something happened to him when he turned forty that drove him out to connect with his native kinsmen. Despite being raised among and immersed in the Egyptian culture for almost four decades, he is never recorded in scripture as referring to himself as an Egyptian. His brothers are always the children of Israel. After he fled Egypt and helped the daughters of Jethro by the well in Midian, they told their father than an Egyptian helped them. But when Moses and Jethro’s daughter Zipporah had their first child, he named him Gershom, which meant a stranger in a foreign land. The Hebrews were his people, whether he was floating in a basket, a 40-year-old living in the Pharaoh’s palace, or an 80-year-old talking to a burning bush.
And on this day of celebration, I laud the tireless commitment my wife shows every day for her people, the one who calls her daughter, the six who call her mom, and the one who has pledged his life and love to her. It has always been in her heart to love and care for us, as I know there are those in your life who have your undying devotion. So maybe we should all stop letting so much time go between times when we honor our loved ones. In a few short verses, Moses went from an infant in a basket to an elderly, bearded deliverer. Don’t wake up tomorrow and wonder where the time went and wish you had spent it differently.
As we seek Him today, let today be the day that the Lord has made for all that it can contain.
Have a beautiful Tuesday.
#4 Rich Holt
Dad of Ripken, Koy, TrishaJean, Samantha, Kakie Holiday and Raleigh
Happy is the man who has his quiver full of them.
