26. Hebrew Worship: By Faith • by Arthur Burk • Sapphire Leadership Group, LLC • www.TheSLG.com • 1

26. Hebrew Worship: By FaithToday is Monday. Yesterday was football day in the US.

The 49ers beat the Falcons 17 - 16. That was somewhat of an upset. It was only the third win of the season for the 49ers.

The 3 - 5 Colts upset the 7 - 0 Broncos with a score of 27 - 24 in a wild game. Peyton Manning of the Broncos is the go to man in tight games and no one expected the Colts to defeat HIM in a close game.

The Eagles and the Cowboys were tied going into the 4th quarter. The Eagles won by a single score. For quite a while, the Texans thought surely this was going to be their game.

Watching a close game can be a lot of fun because you always know how much time is left and what the score is. If you are techie, two clicks gets you an up to the second report. If you are clumsy, eight keystrokes and one click. The data is there.

The data is usually not there when dealing with God. Take the ten plagues. No one knew going in that there would be ten. No one knew how long it would take.

I ponder that myself. Plague number five: all the Egyptian livestock died.

Plague number seven: if they didn’t get their livestock in, it would die. So we have a period of at least a few weeks and possibly a few months during which the Egyptians who had money bought more cattle -- enough to have a significant presence in the overall Egyptian economy for God to de-stroy or for the faithing ones to protect.

Plague number ten: God killed the firstborn of all the cattle. Was that just the cattle of the believing Egyptians who brought their cattle to shelter during the seventh plague, or do we have yet another block of a few weeks or a few months, while the herds are rebuilt? Not sure.

It seems as though at the very least, the ten plagues must have taken at least three months. I won-der if they took as much as two years. We don’t know now, and they most assuredly did not know when it started how long it would take.

What was hardest was watching the lack of impact on Pharaoh. Again and again

26. Hebrew Worship: By Faith • by Arthur Burk • Sapphire Leadership Group, LLC • www.TheSLG.com • 2

he broke his word. There were a few signs along the way of his weakening, but nothing that shouted anywhere near as loudly as his reneging over and over again.

Meanwhile, the brickyard called on a daily basis and the stubble was becoming less and less avail-able. Considering the Hebrews’ propensity for whining when they were free, in the desert, protected by God, fed from His hand every day, and not having to make bricks at all, one would assume that they had the same propensity to whine when they were in Egypt.

So each weary day, each Hebrew had to make a choice as to what they looked at. They could look at the steadily escalating cadence of God’s assault on the Egyptian gods and the demoralization and economic devastation of the Egyptian culture. Or they could look at the fact that the brickyard was still there, complete with taskmasters and quotas.

Faith worshipped God for progress that was measurable, but did not relieve the core pain. Fear groused about the unrelenting, pressing devouring.

This week faith has been challenged in the Sapphire tribe. The wave of pain coming from the world through my inbox has been intense and very real. I am not talking about consumers nursing their bumps and bruises and wanting sympathy. I am talking about builders facing hard core pain, which has been pursuing God’s people for decade after decade.

And people who have been passionately, desperately praying the Egyptian curse prayers have wept the brutal “How long, Lord?” tears.

To them I say, “I don’t know.”

There is nothing else to say. They already have the religious cliches and the social platitudes thrown at them. I simply say, “I don’t know.”

So against the unrelenting fury of the taskmaster’s whip, today I defiantly call out for a prayer of faith from those who can still insist that the God who does the miracles He is doing, must be planning to finish the big job, and not just tease us with some hors d’oeuvres.

So I celebrate Gill. She had never prayed for anyone’s spirit before, but a friend got into trouble with triplets in the womb, and she learned how to minister to their spirits, defying the death words the doctors spoke and she warred those three fine boys into birth, through neonatal and all the way home.

One of them was declared blind, and she warred him into full sight. Go Gill. Go God!

The power of God was manifest against one of the two most Egyptian industries in the world today.

26. Hebrew Worship: By Faith • by Arthur Burk • Sapphire Leadership Group, LLC • www.TheSLG.com • 3

I celebrate the businessman who has experience shipping containers around the world and who found God sending his latest one at God-speed!

I celebrate the businessman who had been looking for financing for months, and who unexpectedly received a grant in God-speed.

I celebrate the dreamer who carried an impossible dream for 15 years and God suddenly opened the door for him to take the next step toward it with God-speed.

I celebrate the family who was too poor to go home for a visit, but God made a way where there was no way.

I celebrate the significant spiritual warfare victories I have had in the last three weeks - not the one I wanted to win, but wins nonetheless, so I celebrate.

Is the breakthrough for our tribe coming soon? I simply don’t know.

What if this is a five year battle? Can I keep writing blogs that long? Will our tribe lean in that long and keep walking by faith?

I certainly don’t know.

I do know that on this evening, at the end of a rather gnarly day, I have a chip on my shoulder against the Egyptian curse, and I choose to bring defiant faith to the table and say that I believe God WILL do something He has not done for any other tribe this size, and this variegated, and He WILL set us free from the Egyptian curse in a dramatic way that the secularists and the religious pontificates cannot explain.

So, for His glory, I march another mile in faith.

And this is high worship.

26. Hebrew Worship: By Faith

Copyright November 2015, by Arthur Burk

From the weary Hub