The death metal band Every Time I Die has some remarkable lyrics about the journey towards discovering ourselves. When looking inside, too often we find that we are parts of a system of injustice, and it feels so much easier not to look…

So how about us - what is it that guides our approach to the Bible? Certainly we each come to scripture with certain assumptions, making the text fit some way of seeing things.

Kat Armas writes about how those who have been marginalized have a better chance of correctly interpreting the bible’s passages about oppressed people than those who come at the text from privilege (see her keen insights beneath this devotional). Because of their lived experiences, they understand the actual lives and issues of those in the Bible in parallel circumstances.

The people of Israel had been enslaved and worked to the bone and treated ruthlessly. They’d cried out to God, and God was in the process of answering. God sent Moses to face off with Pharaoh and to demand change, to demand freedom.

What if Miriam’s fierce, embodied, liberating joy echoes God’s own? Perhaps it shows us a different picture of who God is - not proper & orderly, tame or quiet - loud, exuberant, flowing through every piece of her being.

This week we’ve been considering our insecurity and looking underneath the hood of our souls to see what’s really inside. Turns out, the journey of self-discovering is a sacred trek, a holy enterprise. And it can be frightening as well as releasing.

Jesus taught us to pray “on earth as in heaven” (Matthew 6:10). So if we have complete self-knowledge in heaven (1 Cor 13:12), doesn’t that naturally mean we should pray for it and work towards it now? Yes!!!!

There are key moments in our lives when we realize just how awesome God is. Maybe it’s a sunset or an answered prayer or a time of reflection on our lives, but in that moment everything is clear and obvious: God is God and we are not.

I believe that we are all on some level, prophets, women and men, and that all prophets are reluctant prophets. - Mirabai Starr

When God came to Moses and invited him to join in rescuing the people from oppression in Egypt, Moses responded by saying, ““Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?” ( Exodus 3:11). He just didn’t feel up to it.

Reflecting on the role of the strong women in Exodus 1, we’re inspired to think a little differently about God as well.

Over and over again, God speaks in scripture about the ways those in power have created systems that exploit those who are weaker than they are.

Yes, Jesus cared for individuals. And yet, it was so much more than that.

In the book of Lamentations, the prophet Jeremiah is heartbroken over the urban decay in Jerusalem.

Today we’re looking at what it means to create structural oppression - a system that does the work of oppression for those in power. Note that Pharaoh is gaining so much money and power that he builds two more storehouse cities to hold it all, meanwhile, the people of Israel are pushed further and further down.