REFLECTION
Irma Sanchez
In Exodus 34:6-7 we see that the Lord himself describes his character to Moses, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness,7 keeping steadfast love for the thousandth generation, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, yet by no means clearing the guilty, but visiting the iniquity of the parents upon the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.” This is what I have been taught since I was young and I believe what it says. However, in further reading and paying closer attention I begin to reflect on how God’s goodness can be followed by suffering to his people. How I now view God in Exodus is God that will love you and protect you but only if you give yourself to him and obey him without questioning Him. God keeps his promise to free the Israelites from Egypt and take them to the Promised Land. This would show that God is merciful and gracious as the Israelites would worship other gods when they were slaves in the land of Egypt. God knowingly that the Israelites would disobey Him continued to take them out of the land of Egypt and into the wilderness for 40 years. Within this time the Israelites the disobeyed God were erased from his book and they suffered or even died. With the Covenant that God make with Moses and the laws he sets I believe some of them to be overbearing for the laws that are broken. God is very specific in everything he wants, this is from the laws that he made to the tabernacle that we wants built. He is specific to material and the people that will put it together. He is also very particular of how He wants it laid out. This only leaves me to believe that perhaps that is how detailed God is with each of our lives. Reading the book of Exodus has made me think that just how God is good and forgiving, he also can be quick to punish for disobeying and that thought brought fear. I feared as the people of Israel
In Exodus 34:6-7 we see that the Lord himself describes his character to Moses, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness,7 keeping steadfast love for the thousandth generation, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, yet by no means clearing the guilty, but visiting the iniquity of the parents upon the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.” This is what I have been taught since I was young and I believe what it says. However, in further reading and paying closer attention I begin to reflect on how God’s goodness can be followed by suffering to his people. How I now view God in Exodus is God that will love you and protect you but only if you give yourself to him and obey him without questioning Him. God keeps his promise to free the Israelites from Egypt and take them to the Promised Land. This would show that God is merciful and gracious as the Israelites would worship other gods when they were slaves in the land of Egypt. God knowingly that the Israelites would disobey Him continued to take them out of the land of Egypt and into the wilderness for 40 years. Within this time the Israelites the disobeyed God were erased from his book and they suffered or even died. With the Covenant that God make with Moses and the laws he sets I believe some of them to be overbearing for the laws that are broken. God is very specific in everything he wants, this is from the laws that he made to the tabernacle that we wants built. He is specific to material and the people that will put it together. He is also very particular of how He wants it laid out. This only leaves me to believe that perhaps that is how detailed God is with each of our lives. Reading the book of Exodus has made me think that just how God is good and forgiving, he also can be quick to punish for disobeying and that thought brought fear. I feared as the people of Israel