Bible Journaling - Exodus 33 & 34

Exodus 33 and 34 must be some of my favourite chapters in the Bible. As a matter of fact, I so thoroughly enjoy the text in these two chapters, that I found it difficult to focus in on any specific aspect of the chapters to illustrate it. Fortunately, the Inspire Praise Bible already has some really nice illustrations in both margins of the pages. This allowed me the freedom to simply place some emphasis on the particular verses in the text that I wished to draw attention to. I show you how and why I did this layout so completely differently from my other layouts in this blog. So, what is it about these two chapters that make them so special to me? These are chapters that speak of God's willingness to have a committed relationship with people, as well as with individuals. If you are thinking God is aloof and uninvolved in people's lives, then this blog, may give you a new perspective.

Exodus 33 and 34 look like this in the Inspire Praise Bible.

I seal the pages with Zellen Clear Gesso.

The pages look like this once dry.

I use a combination of metallic pens and Mont Marte Adult Colouring Duo Markers to colour the illustration in the left margin.

I use the same combination of metallic pens and Mont Marte Adult Colouring Duo Markers to colour the illustration in the right margin.

My pages look like this when I am done with the illustrations in the margins.

The first verse I wanted to stop at was 33:11. I used my Faber-Castell True Gel Colour pens to underline these favourite verses of mine.

Inside the Tent of Meeting, the Lord would speak to Moses face to face, as one speaks to a friend. Afterward Moses would return to the camp, but the young man who assisted him, Joshua son of Nun, would remain behind in the Tent of Meeting.

There are two things that strike me in this verse. The most obvious is the open and direct access that existed between God and Moses. It is likened to a friendship between two people. And then, just as one is about to rule oneself out of the equation, believing this to have been a relationship status open to only the likes of Moses, Abraham and David, one reads that last part of the verse, telling us that when Moses left, Joshua stayed behind. Joshua, as we see in later chapters, enjoyed a similar relationship with God. He seeked out God's company and was rewarded with God's presence in return. And what a presence it is! Loving, guiding, supporting, correcting, assisting. If these are the things missing from your life, may I suggest that you too seek out God's presence - and remain there?

I then move on to verse 12b-13. I am trying my best to restrict myself to only certain verses, but feel free to read the whole chapter, if you like. It is a truly brilliant one on man's relationship with God and the other way around.

You have told me, ‘I know you by name, and I look favorably on you.’ If it is true that you look favorably on me, let me know your ways so I may understand you more fully and continue to enjoy your favor. And remember that this nation is your very own people.”

Being known by God, is what this verse is about. God does not attract our attention by calling 'Hey, you!' He calls us by our names. He is intimatemately familiar with us. But more than that. He is favourably disposed towards us! We should take a leaf out of Moses' book and learn how to respond to these givens in our lives; if it is true that we enjoy God's good thoughts about us, then we should seek Him out even more, draw closer to Him, seek His companionship, so that we may get to know and understand Him better. There is no shortcut to building a relationship with either God or man. If you do not put in the time together, the relationship will falter. In the case of God's relationship with man, that means that He will still be keeping tabs on you, tracking you and taking an interest, but you will not get to know Him any better. And the danger of that, is that we then start assuming things about God, charging Him with saying, thinking and doing things which are completely foreign and contrary to His nature. It is so much better to rather get to know Him, so that when you speak about Him, or even just think about Him, you can do it with more authority and actual knowledge, rather than assumed knowledge.
The last part of the the verse is also striking. Moses is the leader of this nation, but He does not take ownership of them. Instead, He hands them over to God. Now think about the people and things in your life that you have taken ownership of. Are they failing? Is things falling apart? Perhaps it is time to hand ownership back to God. Allow Him control. But do not abscond afterwards. After handing control over to God, you should seek out His presence, so that when you go back to lead, direct and manage the people and things you are responsible for, you will truly know what is needed of you, instead of playing guessing games.

I then stop at verse 14.

The Lord replied, “I will personally go with you, Moses, and I will give you rest—everything will be fine for you.”

This is what we can expect when we tackle the big jobs after seeking out God's direction and presence. He will be in the situations with us. What is more, it will lose its ability to overwhelm us. Everything will be fine. That is like having a warranty/guarantee on life itself!

I then move on to verses 15 and 16.

Then Moses said, “If you don’t personally go with us, don’t make us leave this place. How will anyone know that you look favorably on me—on me and on your people—if you don’t go with us? For your presence among us sets your people and me apart from all other people on the earth.”

These verses speak of two things. It speaks of a knowledge of self-worth and of dependancy. Moses knew how much he and the people were worth to God. He knew God took a keen interest in them. And born from this knowledge, he could entreat God to stick around for them, to keep on honouring them with His presence. But let us examine that presence. When I am present in company, it means very little, but the same is not true for the president or some ruler of a country. However, their presence fades away into oblivion, when compared to the presence of God. They can direct people and make things happen. But they have no control over the outcome. God, on the other hand, gives us a guarantee on life; if we allow Him to be present and in control in our lives, the outcomes are assured.
But why would He bother? Because by showing Himself committed to the lives of those who seek Him out and puts Him first in their lives, He brings honour to His own name.
Allow me a word of caution here, as I have once again encountered a similar case this past week. If you play god-god, saying the right things and going through the motions in public, while privately seeking your own will, God will not honour your games by being true to the pretense that you are feigning. You have to seek God out in honesty and truth, for Him to honour your relationship with Him.

I then stop at verse 17.

The Lord replied to Moses, “I will indeed do what you have asked, for I look favorably on you, and I know you by name.”

Now here is the key to having your prayers answered. You seek God out, you place Him first in your life, you submit to His will for your life, you uproot and move into a desert, if that is what He requires of you, but you make sure that you always place Him first and get to know His will, before you start making your requests. Then, when your prayers align with His will, and your life aligns with His directives, then He honours your prayers by answering them. Why would He then answer our prayers? Because we have spent time with Him and He knows us. Because we have spent time with Him and have won His favour.

I next stop at verses 18-23.

Moses responded, “Then show me your glorious presence.”
The Lord replied, “I will make all my goodness pass before you, and I will call out my name, Yahweh, before you. For I will show mercy to anyone I choose, and I will show compassion to anyone I choose. But you may not look directly at my face, for no one may see me and live.” The Lord continued, “Look, stand near me on this rock. As my glorious presence passes by, I will hide you in the crevice of the rock and cover you with my hand until I have passed by. Then I will remove my hand and let you see me from behind. But my face will not be seen.”

Every word and action of Moses speaks of his desire to know God better. It is a chapter in which we see a mere human being drawing close to God, seeking Him out, desiring to have a very close and intimate relationship with Him. And how does God respond to this? He allows Himself to be found, to be heard, and even seen. Allow me to invite you to seek God out today, to search for Him with your whole heart and your whole being, so that you too can receive the invitation that Moses received - 'stand near me on this rock.'
When Jesus died, the curtain dividing the holy from the most holy, was torn in two. Only the high priest could enter the most holy place, having met certain conditions, because this was the place where God would be present. When that curtain tore, we were all given permission to enter the presence of God. The last sacrificial Lamb was slain to make atonement for our sins, and we could now enter the most holy presence of God, we had direct access to God. We no longer needed a mediator or intercessor to approach God on our behalves. The Rock we get to stand on, is Jesus. Allow God to have the kind of relationship with you, where He stretches out His hand to you and say, 'Look, stand near me, on this Rock.' You too, can be a companion of God's.

I then move on to chapter 34 verses 5-7.

Then the Lord came down in a cloud and stood there with him; and he called out his own name, Yahweh. The Lord passed in front of Moses, calling out,
“Yahweh! The Lord!
The God of compassion and mercy!
I am slow to anger
and filled with unfailing love and faithfulness.
I lavish unfailing love to a thousand generations.
I forgive iniquity, rebellion, and sin.
But I do not excuse the guilty.
I lay the sins of the parents upon their children and grandchildren;
the entire family is affected—
even children in the third and fourth generations.”

I wish to stop at these verses because of the amount of times they are misused and abused in people's lives these days. These verses are the ones in which God introduces Himself to Moses, after Moses had asked to get to know Him better. If I use this to describe God's character, I would use the following list of words:

• compassionate;
• merciful;
• patient;
• steadfast/committed;
• loving;
• faithful;
• forgiving;
• just.

Too often I hear people only quote the last lines to justify their condemnation of individuals and entire families. They make God sound like a vengeful, cruel god, who will deliberately seek people out to punish them for the mistakes of their ancestors and forefathers. In so doing, they disregard all of His other characteristics and forget all about the role that Jesus played in obtaining forgiveness for our sins, and release from our iniquities, on the cross. "He who the Son sets free, is free indeed." Let us therefore stop placing unnecessary burdens and shackles on our fellow believers and much rather focus on ALL of God's characteristics, instead of just one. And do not ever neglect the context in which words had originally been spoken.
Moses did not respond to these words with a fear that drove him away from God. Instead, he responded with a sense of unworthiness that led him to a confession of guilt and seeking out God's pardon. And he still expressed the wish that God should claim them as His own special possession (vv. 8-9). If you are going to fear God, let it be for the right reasons, and not because of a warped focusing in on a single aspect of His character. And may that fear of God be a Biblical one of respect and not one of impending danger and fright.

I then stop at verse 10.

The Lord replied, “Listen, I am making a covenant with you in the presence of all your people. I will perform miracles that have never been performed anywhere in all the earth or in any nation. And all the people around you will see the power of the Lord—the awesome power I will display for you.

When last have you seen and experienced miracles? Are you under the impression that God no longer performs miracles? Why would He not? Are His children still getting into situations that they can not get out of? Are they still falling sick and getting overwhelmed by life and by adversaries? If the answers to these questions are yes, then there is still reason for God to perform miracles. A miracle is nothing other than a Godly intervention in human lives. And if that intervention can happen in the natural course of life, He will intervene in that manner, for after all, He is the One who directs nature to continue in its natural course and rhythm. However, if nature needs to take a back seat to His methods of intervening, He will defy even the laws of nature and subject it to His power and chosen course of intervention. We tend to nod at these Godly interventions and call them coincidences when they occur within the natural course of things. And when they defy nature and human logic, we stand in bewilderment, before shrugging our shoulders and assuming that there must simply be some facts that have been ommitted from the account, or that we are unfamiliar with.
The fact that we do not acknowledge, or even recognize these Godly interventions or miracles, does not mean they do not happen. I can personally testify to witnessing a number of miracles and I know plenty others who can do the same, but I would like you to experience the miracle-working power of God for yourself. And that is what this verse is about. We are in a covenant relationship with God, because we have given our lives to Him. If we seek Him out, submit our will to His, and put Him in charge of our lives, there is no reason why He would not intervene in our lives in the same manner that He had intervened in the lives of others. Please refer back to what I said earlier about having your prayers answered by God to understand fully what I am saying here.

I then skip over to verse 14.

You must worship no other gods, for the Lord, whose very name is Jealous, is a God who is jealous about his relationship with you.

Just as your relationship with your wife/husband will falter when you allow a third person into it, so will your relationship with God falter. Now, imagine speaking to your partner and calling them by the name of that third person! This is what we do, when we say that all gods are God, they are simply called by different names. Have you seen how much trouble God went to in order to introduce Himself to Moses and Israel? Have you seen how He kept harping on about the fact that He was to be distinguished from the gods of the Egyptians, and the gods of the other nations they were going to encounter? Have you noticed how He deliberately pointed out His name and His character, even explaining His actions and motivations, so that He could be known to be different from the inventions of human imaginations and false gods? Have you seen how in Exodus 32, He would not associate Himself with the golden calf that was made, even though it was supposed to be a representation of Him, the 'gods... who brought you out of the land of Egypt.'
God is not to be trifled with; He is who He is. For that reason He introduced Himself as I AM. His name is not 'I will be whoever you need me to be, or make me into being, or whatever you believe of me.' His name is I AM. Get to know Him for who He truly is, and not for what you imagine Him to be. Just as your spouse will not respond favourably to you when you call them by someone else's name, just so God will not respond favourably to you if you insist on calling on a figment of your imagination. He is. Or in His words: I AM.

I then turned the page to continue the chapter and I pick up my discussion in verse 28.

Moses remained there on the mountain with the Lord forty days and forty nights. In all that time he ate no bread and drank no water. And the Lord wrote the terms of the covenant—the Ten Commandments—on the stone tablets.

I simply love these verses for the fact that God was willing to fogive so wholeheartedly and to restore the broken. The people had broken the initial covenant with God and Moses had both symbolically and physically broken the tablets on which the law was written. Now God restores this. Too often we rule ourselves out of God's covenant when we do wrong. We do not consider ourselves worthy of forgiveness or we consider our transgressions too grave to be forgiven. Here the people have rejected God Himself, even after He made the mountain shake and smoke in their presence. Still, He showed Himself to be patient and merciful and forgiving, even willing to rewrite the law for them to bring about complete restoration.
And where was Moses in all this? In God's presence, sustained by God. Not eating or drinking for forty days and nights on end. I know that you balk at the idea, saying it is impossible for a human being to survive for that length of time without drinking, even if he could survive without food. I know that you now reason that Moses must have secretly drank some water and eaten some food. But what would that imply? It would either imply that Moses lied about his account of the matter, or that the scribes exaggerated the story when they wrote it down, or that the Bible's account of what happened is untrustworthy. But in all of these arguments you expect your own reasoning to take presedence over what the Bible says.
Now, if this chapter had been a test, you have just failed it. You have just made God into something that fits your human imagination comfortably, instead of allowing Him to be who He is. You have placed human limitations on Him. You have just once again admitted that you do not believe that God can perform miracles. In short, you have made a golden calf. You are still talking about the God who led the Israelites out of Egypt, but He needs to conform to the limitations you have set for Him. Now He is easy to lift up and carry around the desert. You have a handle on God. He fits nicely into the box/shape you have made for Him, be that the shape of a calf or a square. But He is not that. He is 'I AM.' He is able to sustain a man for forty days and nights without food or drink, regardless of whether the limitations of our human imaginations allow us to grasp it, or not.

I then move on to verses 29 to 35, skipping verses 31 and 32, since they are practical ones moving people about.

When Moses came down Mount Sinai carrying the two stone tablets inscribed with the terms of the covenant, he wasn’t aware that his face had become radiant because he had spoken to the Lord. So when Aaron and the people of Israel saw the radiance of Moses’ face, they were afraid to come near him...
When Moses finished speaking with them, he covered his face with a veil. But whenever he went into the Tent of Meeting to speak with the Lord, he would remove the veil until he came out again. Then he would give the people whatever instructions the Lord had given him, and the people of Israel would see the radiant glow of his face. So he would put the veil over his face until he returned to speak with the Lord.

Being in God's presence is a transforming experience. It can not leave you untouched or unchanged. If you truly seek God out and spend time in His presence, it is bound to reflect in your life and even in your person. Your face may not physically shine, but people will note a change in you. Some will respond with fear, as the things we do not understand, tends to frighten us. Others will scoff and mock you. Some will try to tear you down, wishing desperately that they could show you to be false, because then they would find an excuse for their own failures. So be it. Do not let that stop you from seeking God out. It is the single relationship you will ever have, that is truly worth pursuing.

I will devote the rest of the blog to explaining what else I did to lift out the text. I placed a stencil on top of the text to creat text boxes.

I then use a sponge dauber and an ink pad to ink the text frames.

Press the stencil down firmly and daub the ink onto the Bible.

I should have given the gel more time to dry, as the red smudged a little.

I did something similar on the other page, once again not giving the black gel ink enough time to dry!

I then find these rub-on stickers to use on the page.

I use the photo corners to draw attention to the text frames.

Be careful not to allow the dark photo corners to cover the text.

The completed layout. It is much simpler than my usual endevours, but I am very satisfied with the results.

You can watch a short compilation video of the steps above on YouTube:
https://youtu.be/tGuFZCToYmU

Unless otherwise indicated, all scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright 1996, 2005,2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois, 60188. All rights reserved.

Inspire PRAISE South Africa edition copyright 2017 by Christian Art Publishers, PO Box 1599, Vereeniging, 1930, RSA. All rights reserved.

Marietjie Uys (Miekie) is a published author. You can buy my books here:
You can purchase Designs By Miekie 1 here.
Jy kan Kom Ons Teken en Verf Tuinstories hier koop.
Jy kan Kom Ons Kleur Tuinstories In hier koop.
Jy kan Tuinstories hier koop.
You can follow Miekie's daily Bible Study blog, Bybel Legkaart, here in English & Afrikaans.
You may prefer to follow the traveling blog, A Pretty Tourist.
For more crafty ideas and great product reviews, visit A Pretty Talent on Facebook.
If you are in a literary mood, follow Miekie's musings, stories and poetry on A Pretty Author - Miekie.
Remember to keep nurturing your TALENT for making life PRETTY.
You can subscribe to any of these blogs and receive regular updates by email. Simply register your email address at the top of the applicable blog.