Live Free with Josh Howerton - Desperation for the Divine | Ep. 150 | Friday, September 1, 2023

Episode Date: September 1, 2023

What would it look like for you to go deeper in your prayer life? Join us as we kick off 21 days of prayer as a church. Today, Pastor Mike reflects on Moses' story and uncovering the mess he found himself in. God always does amazing work in our messes, so we shouldn’t wait for the perfect time to start praying. Like Moses, it all starts with saying, “Here I am” to God. For more information, visit lakepointe.church/dailydrive

Thanks for tuning in to today's Daily Drive with Lake Point Church, a daily dose of God's word for your morning drive. When the word, not the world, becomes the majority of your week, your life will start to change. For that reason, our prayer is that God will speak to you through today's devotional. For more digital content to feed your faith, visit lakepoint.combe.com slash daily drive. And now let's dive in to today's devotional. Hey, welcome to the Daily Drive podcast. I'm Mike Bro, and I have the privilege of hanging here Monday through Friday with you as we just try to get to know God a little better.

And I am especially excited about what we're starting today and going to be doing for the next three weeks. Our church family is going through an experience of 21 days of prayer together where we're just trying to draw close to Jesus. We're praying for each other, praying for a church family, for every church family out there, praying for those in our lives who may be searching for some truth and hope for their life. We're praying for people going through tough times, and I'm praying

for all of you who hang with us daily on this podcast. So I'd like to invite all of you into a 21-day experience where you talk and seek after God for the next 21 days, and I thought that on the daily drive, we might just track along with this experience that we're calling an encounter. And today, each weekday, and together each week day, what we talk about here, hopefully it might enhance your personal encounter with God. You know, I agree with A.W. Tozier, who famously said, what comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.

What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us. If we view God as like a demanding drill sergeant, just waiting for us to screw up so we can drop the hammer, then we're going to live a life of performance, legalistic rulekeeping, fear, and maintaining our distance from a God-like, that. And man, I have lived that way. And when you view God like that, you might guess shame and

insecurity pretty much rule the day. If we view God as like a concierge or a genie in a bottle where our every wish is his command, then we will live a selfish, entitled, and disillusioned life. If we think of God as this weak, powerless, you know, out-of-touch old grandpa who doesn't get around like he used to, then we will step up and be God. If we see him as an absentee-father, who doesn't care about his kids. Then we're going to live with anger and bitterness and we'll have a bleak outlook on our life. What comes into our mind when we think about God is the most important thing about us. So let's just spend a little time this week getting a proper perspective on God.

And to do that, we're going to look at an encounter he has with a guy named Moses. You may have heard of him. And I know you're not going to believe this, but Moses caught wind to the fact that we're going to spend this week talking about that encounter. and he emailed me. Yes, he emailed me. So I'm just going to read the email that he's set this week. I'm Mike. My name is Moses. I heard you guys doing a week about me on the Daily Drive. So I wanted to share my story with you. Here's how it all started for me. I was born into a very hostile environment, kind of a basket case from the beginning. That's bad, Moses. I was born at a time and place where my life and the lives of every little Hebrew boy was in jeopardy. There was this really evil, insecure king who was threatened by the growing numbers of us,

so he ordered every newborn boy killed. Now, my mom, who was awesome, by the way, tried to hide me as long as she could, but in what turned out to be a brilliant plan, she ended up putting me in a little makeshift baby boat among the reeds of a river bank. Well, she and my sister strategically placed me in a spot where this princess was known to come and bathe. Well, the princess comes and spots me. I mean, who can resist a baby as cute as me, right? She has compassion on me and decides to take me home.

And the story gets even wilder because she knew I needed to be nursed, so she summons my sister, who just happened to be standing close by, to go find a woman who could nurse me. Well, guess who she finds? Yeah, my mom. Looking back, I can see how much my mom loved me, how smart she was. She was an extraordinary woman, and I can see the hand of God in all of this now. But at the time, it was just flat out confusing.

The princess, Pharaoh's daughter, she named me Moses, which basically means found him in the river. And I spent my childhood being raised in two different worlds. My mom would rock me and sing to me songs about the one true God, and my other family was into all kinds of other little G gods. I was part of the people who were being oppressed, but I lived with the ones who were doing the oppressing. I spent the first 40 years of my life never really knowing where I belonged. I was different. I didn't fit. I wasn't like other kids. I was part royalty, part slave. It was strange and confusing. And it never felt really accepted. Never felt like I fit in. And I guess I got a little dinged, a little wounded along the way. And it ended up dealing with all kinds of anger issues, insecurity issues. Hey, I'm sorry this is getting so long, but I could go on and on about what I've been through and how God has healed me and how God used me. It's actually very cool. Maybe I'll write again later on the week. but I hope my story might help somebody there on the Daily Drive. Later, Mo.

That's incredible. So that's just a little background on Moses, but let me introduce this life-changing encounter he has with God by read a little bit of the story, and then tomorrow we'll start about breaking it down and start applying it to our lives. I don't want you to know that God meets us in the middle of our mess. I mean, some of us think there is no way God wants to encounter me.

There's no way he wants to know me, be with me, walk with me, lead me, talk to me, use me, because I have made a royal mess of my life. Well, that's where we find Moses. He's a fugitive hiding out on the backside of a mountain called Sinai, as far away from his palace life as he could possibly get, tending sheep for his father-in-law. I mean, dude's a mess. And God meets him in the middle of his mess. So let me just read the first part of the encounter, and we'll spend the rest of the

the week breaking it all down a little bit. This comes from Exodus chapter 3, the second book in the Bible. It says this one day Moses was tending the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian. He led the flock far into the willerous and came to Sinai, the mountain of God. There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a blazing fire from the middle of a bush. Moses stared in amazement. Though the bush was engulfed in flames, it didn't burn up. This is amazing, Moses said to himself. Why isn't that bush burning up? I must go see it. When the Lord saw Moses coming to take a closer look,

God called to him from the middle of the bush. Moses, Moses, and Moses replied, Here I am. So let's just stop right there for today, and I'm thinking maybe as we start this 21-day encounter, that that could be our simple prayer. I mean, maybe right now, just say to God, Here I am.

Thanks for tuning in today. For more biblical teaching and worship, join us for our church online live weekend services on Saturdays at 6 p.m. and Sundays at 9.30 and 11 a.m. Central Standard Time. Also, if this podcast was helpful to you, would you be sure to rate, review, and share this podcast to help get the word out?

For more information about all digital ministries of Lake Point, visit lake point.church slash daily drive.