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Through the Eyes of An Old Flame - Intro

In the six months since I've been back home, I have managed to do one thing I'd never done in 20 years of ministry - I officiated a wedding.  My cousin married her high school sweetheart last month and it was a joy to participate in the ceremony that brought them together.  The groom told my mom he's worked 30 years to get that ring on her finger - not literally, but it was his way of saying he'd always loved her all these years.  Cue the movie theme music to swell and the credits to roll on their "happily ever after".  (Or at least that's what the Cinderella-lover in me finds appropriate.)

There's just something about the love of an old flame, isn't there? It says, "nothing about your life has diminished my love for you."  It erases years, distance, mistakes, laughlines.  It loves with the purity of a new love never gone wrong, never hurt, never separated.   Something in us needs to believe in that kind of love - not just in romance, but in redemption.  Redemption finds value in what's been broken, what's been lost, and loves just as strongly as before. 

I like a good love story, but I love a good redemption story.  I love broken things that are loved like they're shiny and new - not in spite of their flaws, but because of them.  There's something at our core that needs to know there are no perfect people.  We need to believe we are not the only ones who've made a mess of our lives.  More than that, we need to believe someone can love us, not in spite of our flaws, but because of them.  We need to know there is redemption.  We long to be seen through the eyes of an old flame. 

And we don't just desire this kind of love or redemption just for ourselves.  We want it for those we love.  Moses wanted this kind of redemption for the descendants of Joseph when he blessed them with the "favor of Him who dwells in the burning bush".  There's something about that phrase that catches me every time I read it.  Of all the ways Moses could have described God, of all the ways he had experienced God, he chose to bless Joseph's descendants with the favor of the bush dwelling God he had encountered so many years ago. 

Consider at this point in his life, all the monumental things God had done in Moses' life.  He'd helped him overcome a stuttering tongue to become one of the greatest leaders in Israel's history.  He'd experienced the miraculous power of God through his obedience - a staff turned to snake, a river turned to blood, the plagues on Egypt, the parting of the Red Sea, the decimation of the pursuing Egyptian army.  He'd seen God provide every need the nation of Israel encountered in the wilderness - daily manna from heaven, water from a rock, more quail than the could even eat.  He'd seen them healed from snake venom.   He'd seen God bless them and regenerate them and lead them to the very brink of their greatest blessing, the conquering and the possession of the land of Promise. 

Still, when it came time to bless the tribes of Israel, Moses went all the way back to that first encounter on the back side of the desert when an old flame inhabiting a bush had spoken to him and changed his life forever.  We'll dissect this favor of Him Who dwells in the burning bush in the next couple of blog posts; and maybe in it, we'll all find a little of the redemption we need, and the love we crave that sees us through the eyes of an old flame.  I hope you'll come along for the journey.