In Exodus the new Pharaoh is getting nervous about how the Israelite's numbers are growing bigger and bigger. So, Pharaoh tells the Hebrew midwives to kill the baby boys. The midwives fear God more than they fear Pharaoh so they don't do what Pharaoh says. When Pharaoh finds out, he asks them why they have not obeyed him and they tell him that the mothers have the babies before they get there. So, Pharaoh tells his soldiers to go kill all the baby boys.  In chapter two, a Levite woman gets pregnant and has a baby boy. She hides him for three months and then puts him in a basket and sends him down the Nile. Pharaoh's daughter finds him and adopts him and has his own mom gets to nurse him for pay. When Moses grows up, he goes out to watch the slaves. An Egyptian starts beating one of the Hebrew slaves and Moses kills the Egyptian. Moses flees Egypt and goes to Midian. He marries a woman named Zipporah. In chapter three, Moses is tending the flocks and he sees a burning bush, but the bush isn't being burned. A voice comes the the bush and the Lord commissions Moses to make Pharaoh let his people go.
        My favorite verse is Exodus 2:8, "Yes, go," she answered. So the girl went and got the baby's mother. This is my favorite verse because it's ironic, but it's God. God provided for this mother, first, that the baby was found and adopted, and second that his own mother was chosen to nurse him.
        I can apply these chapters to my life for when Moses trusted the voice in the burning bush and did as it said. Often, I don't listen to God even when I know that the voice is God, and Moses didn't. Sometimes, I don't like to listen to God because his way is harder and I just want to stay in my own sin because it takes to much work. But compared to what Moses had to do, what I have to do is nothing. So, I need to apply this to my life by listening to God's voice even when what he's asking is hard.

     
         It's easy to have faith in God when everything in your life is going well. The hard part of faith comes when things start to go wrong for you. People in your life may help you during these times, but a lot of people will give you bad advice. Like Job, people in your life may tell you to curse God. During these times, the best thing to do will be to praise God and stay strong in your faith. It's not easy, but it's not impossible.
       
        Job was the richest man in all the earth. He had 7,000 sheep, 3,000 camels, 500 yoke of oxen, and 500 female donkeys. He also had many servants. He had three daughters and seven sons. In one day, he lost everything he had. He lost all of his sheep, camels, oxen, donkeys, children, and servants. The only thing that remained was himself and his wife. The first example of when Job stood firm in his faith is after four servants come to tell him that all of his animals, children and servants are gone. After he hears this in Job 1:20-22 he says: "Then Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head and fell on the ground and worshiped. And he said, 'Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.' In all this Job did not sin or charge God with wrong." That takes a lot of faith right there. A LOT. Even when Job lost everything he had, he fell to his knees and worshiped the Lord. The second example is when Satan strikes Job with boils and in Job 2:9 his wife says:  "Then his wife said to him, 'Do you still hold fast to your integrity? Curse God and die.' But he said to her, 'You speak as one of the foolish women would speak. Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil?' In all this Job did not sin with his lips." Job loses everything and worships God and then he loses his health and is struck down with boils and still worships God and does not sin. Job is a great example to us in our times of struggle. Even though our struggles are relevant in God's eyes, they are nothing compared to what Job was burdened with. Next time we are struggling, we can look to Job as an example and fall to our knees to worship God.

        God is a just God. He does not do things without reason. Job's suffering was a trial from God, but also it was a temptation from Satan to curse God. A trial from God is different than a temptation from Satan because God wants you to pass the test, and Satan doesn't.  God is a loving God, so of course He wants you to pass his test. Satan is evil and wants you to fail at everything. You may be burdened with suffering and you don't know what to do. Take it as a test that you need to pass and worship God throughout it. Also, God is sovereign. He has authority over whatever suffering a person may be going through. He has power over that situation and we need to trust him in the midst of everything.

        Genesis 12 starts with Abram and his family leaving Haran and going to Canaan. The Lord tells Abram that this land is promised to him, so Abram builds an altar to worship the Lord. They then continue on to Egypt and Abram, knowing how beautiful his wife Sarai is, tells her to tell anyone who asks that she is his sister so that they will not kill Abram and take Sarai. Pharaoh. thinking that they are not married, takes Sarai into his house. The Lord curses Pharaoh's household with plagues and Pharaoh brings Sarah out of his household wondering why Abram didn't just tell him that Sarai was his wife. The Egyptians sent Abram and his family on their way. In the beginning of chapter 13 Abram have a conversation about how their possessions are too great to share this land together and they separate. Lot goes by the evil cities of Sodom and Gomorrah and Abram goes the opposite way. In chapter 14 there is a war going on and Lot along with many men from Sodom and Gomorrah and all of the two cities possessions gets captured. So, Abram takes 318 trained men and goes and saves all the captured people and all the stolen possessions. The king of Salem blessed him and Abram gave him a tenth of everything. Te king of Sodom offered to give him some of the returned possessions as thanks but Abram refused saying that he had made an oath to God not to accept anything from them. Chapter 15 begins with the Lord speaking to Abram and telling him not to be afraid. Abram questions the Lord, asking how he can fulfill the covenant if he is childless. The Lord says that if Abram can count the stars, that is how many his descendants will be. Abram gives an offering to the Lord. Abram falls into a deep sleep and God says that for four hundred years his people will be held captive but will be delivered and will return to this land. God promises him this land.

        My favorite verse is Genesis 15:6: "Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness." This is my favorite verse because it represents Abram very well. Abram has a lot of faith in God. First, he left Ur because he heard a voice telling him to and he had no idea who this voice was. Also, he has so much faith in the Lord that if God said to sacrifice his son, Abram would obey. His faith is an example to fellow believers. 

        I can apply this to my life by having more faith in God. Usually I do have faith in God, to a point. But when he's "taking too long" I get mad and take matters into my own hands. I need to work on my faith in God to do the right thing at the right time because he's God and knows better than I do. 

      

         Chapter 6 begins with God as he looked upon the earth and saw how evil humans were, how evil even their thoughts were. God was filled with grief and decided to wipe humans and animals from the face of the earth. But Noah found favor in the eyes of God and God told him of his plan to wipe humans from the face of the earth. He tells Noah to build an ark 300 cubits long, fifty cubits wide and thirty cubits high. He gives him all the details on how to build the ark, even what type of wood to use. He tells him to bring, along with his family, two animals of every living creature, both male and female, two of every kind of bird of every kind of animal and of every kind of creature. God tells him to bring every kind of food that is to be eaten and store it away for his family. And Noah did everything that God commanded. In Chapter 7 God told Noah to take with him seven pairs of every clean animal, a male and its mate and one pair of every kind of unclean animal. Noah did as commanded. Noah was 600 when the floodwaters came. He and his family entered the ark and it rained for forty days and forty nights. Everything that had breath in its nostrils died. Only those on the ark were left. The water flooded the earth for 150 days. In chapter 8, at the end of the 150 days the water had gone down. After forty days Noah sent out a raven and it returned with nothing. Seven days later he sent out a dove to see if the water had receded and the dove came back with a freshly plucked olive branch. Seven days later he sent the dove out again and the dove did not return. God told Noah and his family and animals to come out of the ark and God promised never to flood the earth again. In chapter 9, God called them together and said be fruitful and multiply, the fear of humans will be in the animals. Then he told them that the sign of their covenant would be the rainow. Then noah got dressed and lay naked in his tent and his sons covered him up and he cursed the youngest, father of Caanan. 

         My favorite verse from these four chapters was Genesis 9:12-16 ¹² And God said, “This is the sign of the covenant I am making between me and you and every living creature with you, a covenant for all generations to come: ¹³ I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth.¹⁴ Whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds, ¹⁵ I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind. Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life. ¹⁶ Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth.” This is my favorite verse because literally whenever I see the rainbow I think of God an I just feel so incredibly close to him and he feels so real to me because he literally put that rainbow there with his hands becuse he loves us and will not break his covenant to us. 

         I've literally heard this story 100 times but reading it on my own made me see and understand more things. One thing that really stuck out to me is that Noah trusted God enough to build this crazy thing that no one had ever seen before and to put his family and a bunch of animals on it too. Its the same with Abraham. Abraham trusted God so much that he would sacrifice his own son on the altar and I realized that I really don't trust God with that much of my life. Being a pastors kid means you pretty much know almost everything in the Bible and so I think that I don't have to study or read the Bible and I'm already a Christian so why trust him with every part of my life? But our purpose on earth is to glorify God and enjoy him forever so why on earth would I not trust him with every part of my life?