Bit-by-Bit Living - Martin Wiles

One day the Lord said to Moses, “Climb one of the mountains east of the river, and look out over the land I have given the people of Israel. Numbers 27:12 NLT

As a preacher’s kid, I moved more times than I care to count. Dad didn’t stay at any one church long. Every two or three years—sometimes after only one year—I’d get the news we planned to move. This made making friends difficult. Eventually, I didn’t care much about making friends. After all, I’d be leaving soon. But I made it through all the moves. 

A few years after graduating high school, I became a preacher and started the moving process all over again. Although I didn’t move as often as Dad, I did move every five or six years—and occasionally sooner than that.

n my younger years, moving proved easy—at least from a physical standpoint. As I got older, things changed. Aches and pains crept in. Backaches mainly, which made lifting difficult. And who can move without doing a lot of lifting?

By the time I neared retirement age, I hoped my wife and I had put moving behind us. Not so. A better deal came up. We feared our landlord might sell our patio townhome because it needed so many repairs. Another couple who was our age owned a unit three doors down. I didn’t want to move, but they were searching for long-term tenants, and we were their choice. After listening to their offer, I gave in to my wife’s pleadings.

Then came the fun. Fortunately, our new landlords gave us an entire month to move. We had already paid our rent at our old home, no one lived in the one we planned to move into, and our new landlords didn’t care if we moved in bit by bit. For two people with backaches, foot aches, shoulder aches, and about every other ache one can imagine, we were glad we didn’t have to move in one day or even a weekend.

Moses was a bit-by-bit kind of guy, too, when carrying out God’s plan. God wanted him to lead the children of Israel out of Egyptian slavery, but he didn’t make Moses do it in a weekend—or even in a week or year. God’s plan started with Pharaoh’s daughter saving Moses from certain death when he was just a baby. Then, the plan entailed Moses spending forty years on the back side of a desert tending his father-in-law’s sheep. From there, the plan entailed many plagues on the Egyptians, crossing the Red Sea, disobedience, and forty years of wandering in the wilderness. Bit by bit, Moses obeyed God’s plan, which helped him from becoming overwhelmed and giving up. In the end, he died before leading the Israelites into the Promised Land—the price he had to pay for disobeying along the way.

God’s plans for us can often seem overwhelming—or even something we don’t want to do. Moses wasn’t excited about God’s plan in the beginning. But just as my wife and I didn’t have to move in short order, God often gives us years to accomplish his plan. His timetable is quite different from ours. He knows our human nature to fear, feel overwhelmed, manipulate, and control. Fortunately, he’s patient as we move along with his plan, giving us time to come around to his way of thinking, doing things, and working through our fears and doubts.

In the final account, what makes us successful involves faith. We walk by faith. We live by faith. Any other way leads to failure, as it did with Moses when he chose to strike a rock to attain water for the people when God told him to speak to it. Through mounds of prayer and tons of trust, we let God guide us to carry out his work—in his way and according to his timetable. He drives fear away, teaches us to let him take the lead, and does more through us than we could ever imagine. This way, he gets the credit, and we keep pride out of our lives.

Rather than trying to run ahead of God—or do too much at one time—let God help you accomplish his plan bit by bit.

 

Father, thank you for your patience as I carry out your plan. 

Tweetable: Are you trusting God for bit-by-bit living? 

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Meandering Monday - Keeper of the Memories - Martin Wiles

Welcome to Meandering Monday, where we take a trip back to an earlier post and enjoy it again.

You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. Deuteronomy 6:7 NKJV

I was the keeper of the memories.

I’ve never had to keep the family memories before. Sure, I knew them—and even helped with a family genealogical book—but most of my relatives were strangers to me. My immediate family was the only ones I had built memories with. Those memories I didn’t have to worry about forgetting because I had patriarchs and matriarchs to help me recall.

Then, it happened. One by one, family members began dying. Now only my mother remains. When she’s gone, I’m next in line. Since her memory is fading, I try to ask her everything I might want to know about the family. Hopefully, someone in the family will keep the memories alive when I’m gone as well.

Early in his history with the Israelites, God instructed them to keep the memories alive. Not family memories necessarily, but commandment memories. The only way their children and grandchildren would know God’s commands was if the parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents talked about them continuously. Regardless of where they were, they should let God’s mandates be on their lips.

The only way to move items from short into the long-term memory bank is through memorization and continual use. I memorized multiplication tables as a middle schooler and have used them all my life. I don’t have to think about what eight times six is. I’ve calculated it so many times the answer comes naturally.

So do God’s commands. I’ve known them since I was able to comprehend them. My parents engrafted them into my mind through various teaching methods. I did the same with my children. Hopefully, they will do the same with theirs.

We can force salvation and godliness on family members, but we can offer them by making them a regular part of our speech and living out the memories through everyday activities.

Are you keeping spiritual memories alive for your family?

Prayer: Father, may we keep the memories of Your commandments alive in our family’s lives. 

Tweetable: Are you keeping God's commands alive? 

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