A Festival!

Exodus 5 - The Desert
I didn't make it passed the first verse of this chapter without getting stopped. Here is what Moses and Aaron said to Pharaoh: 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.' Isn't it interesting that the first thing God wanted His people to do was go into the desert to hold a festival for Him? I mean the desert isn't typically known as the best place to hold a festival. It's hot. It's desperately barren. It's the kind of place where people die if they get lost. So why did God want to hold a festival there? I think it's because there aren't any distractions in the desert. It's quiet. It's empty. It's the kind of place where I can be still enough to actually hear God.

Sometimes, in my own life, I find myself in the same place. I'm alone, empty feeling and desperate. I'm in the desert...and it's tempting to run. To see the desert as a bad place. As a place to flee from as fast as I can, but maybe God wants me there for a reason? Maybe I'm exactly where I need to be. Maybe God brought me there for a festival!