Three months after the night of Passover, Israel arrived at the foot of Mount Sinai. They had seen the plagues, the parted waters, the pillar of fire, and now they stood before a mountain wrapped in smoke and thunder, and heard God’s booming voice shake the mountain. But this was not the voice of an enslaving tyrant, like Pharaoh. It was the voice of a Father teaching His children how to stay free...  Read More

Exodus 19:1-20:21When God’s people were finally free from slavery in Egypt, God gave Moses instructions to share with His people.As the Israelites gathered at the foot of Mount Sinai, thick clouds swirled in the sky, darkening the land. Constant flashes broke the darkness as bright bolts of lightning swarmed the mountain, appearing and disappearing, and then appearing again. The ground shook as th...  Read More

Exodus 12:1-42The Israelites looked to Moses as their deliverer, the one who would help them and set them free from slavery. He would bring them to their true home, the land of Israel, a land promised to their father, Abraham.In preparation for this deliverance and journey home, they had something called the Passover. God asked the Israelites to cover their doorways with the blood of a lamb so tha...  Read More

There’s a strange kind of waiting that happens in the dark, waiting that holds both fear and hope in the same breath. That’s the kind of waiting Israel knew on the night of the first Passover. For 430 years, their prayers had echoed in Egypt’s streets: “How long, O Lord?” And now, as midnight approached, that question hung in the air, but this time, with a whisper of deliverance.God told them what...  Read More

Exodus 2:1-25, 3:1-14Many years after Joseph, God’s people were still living in Egypt, but now as slaves. God wanted to rescue His people and bring them to the land He had promised.When Moses was a baby, God saved him from the Nile River. And when Moses grew up, God saved him from the anger of Pharaoh, the king of Egypt.God saved Moses for a very important reason: to rescue God’s people from slave...  Read More

Moses’ story starts in chaos. He was born into a world where Pharaoh had issued a death sentence on newborn Israelite boys like him. Not exactly the best start. But his mother hides him, and when that no longer works, she acts in reckless faith, placing her baby in a basket and sending him down a river, praying for God’s protection. A prayer God answers, as Pharaoh’s daughter finds him, has compas...  Read More

Genesis 37, 45:4-11, 50:15-21Joseph was one of many sons of Jacob. Although Jacob had 12 sons, he loved Joseph the most. Jacob, showing his love for Joseph, gave him a very expensive, fancy, colorful coat. Joseph also received dreams from God, showing he was destined for greatness in his future.Joseph’s brothers were jealous of him and hated him. They wanted to kill him, but they instead sold him ...  Read More

Joseph’s story is famous and inspiring; he is an overcomer, but sometimes we are too quick to see ourselves in his story, rather than the story of his brother! They sold him for twenty pieces of silver, beat him, and stripped him of his beautiful coat, the symbol of his father’s favor. And if we’re honest, we might have done the same.Joseph was daddy’s favorite, likely to inherit his everything, a...  Read More

Genesis 28:1-22Isaac grew up to have a son of his own, named Jacob, Abraham's grandson. Jacob wronged his own brother and had to run away from his family for fear of his life. During his journey, Jacob came to place to lay for the night thinking of all the good things he had to leave. On this one night, God visited Jacob and spoke to him in a dream and showed him a vision - a symbol of God’s promi...  Read More

Ladders are ordinary tools, but their purpose is extraordinary. They connect what seems impossible to reach. They bring the high and the low together. With a ladder, the lofty and the lowly meet. They make a way where no way previously existed.When Adam and Eve sinned, humanity was separated from God. The gap wasn’t just spiritual; it was relational, a height we could never scale on our own. Heave...  Read More

Genesis 22:1-19God promised Abraham a family. God had given Abraham and Sarah a gift—their son, Isaac. Isaac was their joy and delight. They treasured their son, and loved him more than anything.God spoke to Abraham, asking him to make a sacrifice of his son. God was testing Abraham because he obeyed God in all he did. Abraham knew what he had to do. Abraham and Isaac set off on a 3 day journey to...  Read More

God had given Abraham and Sarah a gift, their son Isaac. From the moment he cried his first newborn wail to the first time he tottered across the tent, Isaac was their joy, their delight, the treasure of their hearts. They loved him more than anything, more than life itself.And then one day, God spoke to Abraham with a command that shook him to his core: Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom yo...  Read More

Genesis 12:1-7, 15:1-6A man named Abraham was living peacefully at home with his family, in a land he’d always known, with a clear vision of his future. He understood what his path in life was. He knew his future, and was eager for it. Abraham was set. But then came something he never could have believed. God spoke directly to Abraham, changing his plans and his future and calling him to something...  Read More

THE PROMISE The story of Abraham is, at its heart, about looking at the impossible and trusting God anyway. It begins with a call: Leave your country, your people, and your father’s household and go to the land I will show you. - Genesis 12:1 Abraham was seventy-five years old when God called him. All he had was God’s word.God’s promise came with a vision that stretched beyond Abraham’s imaginatio...  Read More

NOAH AND THE FLOOD If you’ve ever worked on something others didn’t understand, a project, a dream, a step of faith, you have a small glimpse of Noah’s world. God gave him a command that must have sounded absurd: “Make yourself an ark of gopher wood.” (Genesis 6:14) There had never been a flood like the one God described. And yet, for roughly a century, Noah worked, cut, built, and preached while ...  Read More

Genesis 6:5-14, 7:-5, 7:17-8:12, 9:1-17As the world kept growing, unfortunately sin kept growing. The more people sinned, the more the world became more broken, angering God. God would send a big flood to destroy the earth to start all over again. But God, because He is kind, decided to preserve the goodness of His creation. He would restore the earth, and to help, He would use a man named Noah. N...  Read More

Genesis 2:4-3:24God created Adam and Eve, who were perfect and without sin.God put Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden to work and keep it, to enjoy the world that He had given them. God told them they can eat fruit from all of the trees in the garden, except one. God commanded, You may surely eat of every tree of the garden,but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat,for in...  Read More

ADAM & EVE Have you ever tried to put something together and realized, halfway through, that you left out an important piece? Maybe it was a toy, a shelf, or a recipe. Everything looks fine for a moment, but without the missing piece, the shelf won’t hold together, or the birthday cake will taste like wheat bread.It’s a lot like life without knowing what we’re for. In Genesis 2, God shows us what ...  Read More

CREATION The best stories have amazing first lines; just think about Charles Dickens’ “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,” in A Tale of Two Cities or E.B. White’s “Where’s Papa going with that ax?” in Charlotte’s Web. A great opening pulls us into a bigger story, one we want to keep reading.The Bible begins with the greatest opening line of all: “In the beginning, God created th...  Read More

In the beginning, God was already there. He was perfect and good, full and complete. He didn’t need anything more than what He already had. But this was just the beginning!God created everything in the entire universe—the sun, moon, and stars. The mountains, valleys, and trees. And everything else that flies in the sky, walks on the land, and swims in the sea!But of all of His creation, one thing ...  Read More

Read/listen to Bible. Read devotional. Reflect. For each day of this devotional journey, we encourage you to read the assigned passage of Scripture before reading the reflection. Allow God’s Word to be your primary guide, and let this resource serve as a supplement to that guidance, much like a map is to a lit path in the darkness. The lit path will show you the way; the map will aim to help you m...  Read More

In the beginning, God was already there. He was perfect and good, full and complete. He didn’t need anything more than what He already had. But this was just the beginning!God created everything in the entire universe—the sun, moon, and stars. The mountains, valleys, and trees. And everything else that flies in the sky, walks on the land, and swims in the sea!But of all of His creation, one thing ...  Read More