just another pop-by

(oh yea, happy birthday abby, shall pass you letter on sunday. apologies for really sucky handwriting.)

Exodus 5:1
Afterward Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and said, "This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: 'Let my people go, so that they may hold a festival to me in the desert.' "

God asks for His people to hold a festival for Him in the desert?

The desert is where the heat burns on your skin.
Where every step feels like your feet are on fire.
Where your tongue feels like dry parchment and your arms feel so tired you can't bother to lift them up.
Where it's just trudging onward. Another step, another step another step.

Where it's barren. There isn't any life around. The life that exists there exists to kill you or to do you harm.
And it's where people die when they get lost.

That's why being in a spiritual desert isn't something fun.

But God asked for the Israelites to go to the desert to hold a festival.
To praise Him.

This is why the desert song speaks so strongly to me some days.
Because it says that in my desert, I shall praise Him.

In the desert, once you shut up all the voices that are your own
and you choose.
choose
To praise Him.

That is where you show the enemy that you don't praise Him because of His presents
His gifts, His blessings
That is where you say "I praise my God for who He is"
"It doesn't matter where I am, He doesn't change. And I will praise Him for who He is. My unchanging, awesome God."

In your desert, hold a festival. Praise Him.
Because He never changes.