Noah and Moses

If I had seen Noah building an Ark today, I wouldn't have been surprised.  The rain became positively torrential during the night and continued all day and evening.  I'm told it will rain like this, nonstop, for several days, and ease up around Wednesday.  The birds seem happy enough, when they are not being blown about like leaves.  Gales and a nonstop heavy rain - it made me homesick for Scotland, and for its weather opposite, Boise (I've been spoiled by the dry weather back in the Treasure Valley).

They switched our schedule today and we had practicum in the morning, and a three hour lecture in the afternoon (I had forgotten what three hour lectures were like on a Friday afternoon, in an old building that is very WARM...).  My attention kept being drawn to the window and the various birds that would blow past.  I could watch the birds here all day.  5 pm meant that I had completed week 10 of the term.  I let the wind blow me to the car and then down to chapel, and eventually back to the apartment.

In chapel we were reminded that all the work we do provides the foundation for us to serve humanity more effectively.  What we learn is not for ourselves alone; it is to empower service.  As we heard God's invitation for Moses to come and deliver God's people, our chaplain reminded us that God didn't say to Moses:  "Go and deliver my people."  God said "come and deliver my people."  Our first call is into the heart of God; from there we can go forth to serve with vision, grace and strength.  In all my years of reading that passage in Exodus I had never noticed the direction of the call.  But it makes good sense - it is from the heart of God that we are enlivened and empowered for service - to go forth and speak to the Pharaohs of our day and bring a word of light, life, and liberation.

I plan to rest this weekend (there isn't much else to do given the weather).  I am physically very tired, but mentally/emotional/spiritually energized.  I'll keep an eye out for Noah in the gales and rain and keep mopping up the water that seeps in through the windows and doors ... and consider which Pharaoh God is calling me to confront.

Has God called you to speak a word of light, life and liberation to one of the Pharaohs of our world?  If so - which one?

With love and prayers,
Kim