Creating a journey map

Moses built an altar and called it The Lord is my Banner. He said, “Because hands were lifted up against^[a] the throne of the Lord,  the Lord will be at war against the Amalekites from generation to generation.” Exodus 17:15 NIV

 After Moses had sent away his wife Zipporah, his father-in-law Jethro received her  and her two sons. One son was named Gershom,  for Moses said  "I have become a foreigner in a foreign land”;   and the other was named Eliezer,  for he said, “My father’s God was my helper; he saved me from the sword of Pharaoh.” Exodus 18: 2-4 NIV

In the Scriptures, names help map the spiritual journey of  the people involved. Here in Exodus 15, following the defeat of the Amalekites in Israel's first  armed wilderness conflict, Moses built an altar and gave it a name: Jehovah Nissi - the Lord is our banner. It became a visual reminder of God's miracle of protection and speaking or hearing it's name was intended to trigger the memory of the story of what happened there.

As the next chapter begins, Moses family arrives. Forty years prior to becoming Israel's leader, Moses had fled into the wilderness after killing an Egyptian slave master. Jethro took him in and eventually Moses married Jethro's daughter and started a family. He gave each of his sons a special name as well - so that the boys served as audio/visual reminders of what God had done for him.
God constantly uses this type of spiritual mapping tool to keep the minds of his people focused on him. It also helps future generations to see and remember hos love, care and provision.

 Several years ago, I taught a workshop at a women's convention and used this spiritual mapping exercise to help them create a visual memory trigger of God's work in their lives.
We started with a blank sheet of paper and drew a lighthouse in the upper left-hand corner.
 This is represented the point where we began our journey with Christ, our personal Light. Then we drew a ragged coastline diagonally across the page to the bottom right-hand corner and placed another lighthouse there, representing where we are today. This became a  visual map and timeline of our Christian walk.

One side of the line represented the sea.  On the sea side, we named events or people that hurt  or troubled us on our spiritual journey; anything that threatened to overcome us spiritually. Some  women got really creative drawing rocks, whirlpools or great whales in their oceans, each with a name. LOL!

The coast side represented the solid rock of Jesus Christ.  Starting from the time we accepted Christ, we drew small lighthouses all along the coastline, corresponding to the troubled times. We named these lighthouses for people who  influenced us, prayed for us and supported us during the crises. I included the names of Bible women who had influenced my life as well.

Next, we drew a second set of lighthouses  and named them to represent events  like answers to prayer, major or minor miracles that impacted our lives, corresponding to the hurtful things on the sea side. We also included scripture verses or promises that were important during those stormy times of our lives.  

What I discovered by doing this exercise was  that the lighthouses I had drawn were spaced expertly down the coastline. There were no blind spots where the light or influence of Christ did not reach. Christ always sent someone or something to help light my way during the stormiest parts of my life, even though I didn't always realize it at the time!

I like to get this "map" out often - especially when I feel down or discouraged because it helps me see more clearly that Christ’s Light is always shining out across the  difficult waters I am experiencing.

What names would you include on a map of your spiritual journey? How has Christ met your needs or encouraged you along the way through people, events or his word?

Healing Words

Then the Lord said to Moses, “Write about this battle. Write these things in a book so that people will remember what happened here. And be sure to tell Joshua that I will completely destroy the Amalekites from the earth.”

 Then Moses built an altar and named it, “The Lord is My Flag.” Exodus 17:14-15 ERV

For generations, people have kept diaries and journals. I recently began reading The Secret
Holocaust Diaries, written by a young girl from a well-to-do Russian family who lost everything, traveling with her mother to the slave labor camps (not concentration camps) in Germany during WWII. She kept her memories in thin journals and on scraps of paper, hidden in a pillow she tied around her waist, made of black and white ticking.

For years she kept her writings secret, Even when she came to America and experienced a safe environment for the first time in her life, she kept her writings and her past hidden. She made pilgrimages to the attic where she transcribed her  journals into English on yellow legal pads, processing the horrors she had experienced.  A lifetime passed before she was finally ready to share her memoirs with her husband and family. She wanted them to understand who she was; the events that had shaped her life and molded her future.  But she made him promise he wouldn't make her secrets public until after she died.

I am thankful that she chose to share her life because there is a richness of faith and the presence of God so evident in her life, in spite of the horror and pain.  Though my own "wilderness journey" seems harsh and difficult to me as I remember it, hers was even more so and helps me put things into perspective.

I became a writer for much the same reason - to make sense of my past and to share the lessons I learned with others so they might come to know the hand of God in their lives.

God "called" Moses to become a writer too - to write down the details of Israel's first battle as a nation so future generations could see and remember God's hand with them. Moses didn't stop there. He authored the first five books of the Bible which detail Israel's history from the beginning of time until they stood as a nation on the brink of the inheritance God promised their forefather Abraham.

God intended that those writings would become a historical record of his love and care for his people so that future generations would be able to know without a shadow of doubt that God loved them too. These writings have helped to heal the nation of Israel countless times through their history as they drifted away from God and then returned to him.

His writings still influence countless pilgrims as they take a journey to healing which leads through the wilderness. When I first began my healing journey, many of the promises I clung to came from the stories of Israel's healing journeys authored by Moses in Genesis through Deuteronomy. Their stories banished my feelings of aloneness on the journey and gave me hope to believe that God was the same today. If he loved and delivered the Israelites, he would do the same for me.

Today, think about all the stories you can remember from the wilderness journey of the Israelites. Which ones stand out to you and why? How has God used those same stories to influence your life or strengthen your faith? Write about these things.

If you don't already keep a journal, maybe it's time you should!