FamilyLife Today®

Speaker 1

Before creation, God's plan was to dwell with his people. We know that the fall happened and this distance took place, but it did not take God's intention away.

Like his plan has always been to dwell with his people. And he sent his son to redeem, to purchase us so that he can dwell with his people.

Speaker 2

Welcome to family Life today where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I'm Dave Wilson.

Speaker 3

And I'm Ann Wilson. And you can find us@familylifetoday.com this is Family life today. Today we have one of my favorite teachers with us.

Speaker 2

You don't say that about me every day. Oh, you're not talking about me.

Speaker 3

You are one of my favorite teachers. But we have one of my favorite women teach with us today. Nana Dulce is back with us in studio. Nana, we love having you with us.

Speaker 2

We do.

Speaker 1

We love you and I love being here. Thank you.

Speaker 2

I had this weird thing come to my mind and things that come to my mind shouldn't always be said out loud. But I had nah nah, nah, nah nah nah nah nah nah. Don say, have you heard that before? I'm sure you've had that before.

Speaker 1

So I've heard that, you know, that's. I hear that no one's ever connected it to my last name until now.

Speaker 2

Well, I think so.

Speaker 3

I like it. There you go. Don't say, does Eric like it? That's the question.

Speaker 2

Tell them what Eric's doing right now.

Speaker 1

So I am in the studio with you all and just around the corner in the green room, Eric is with Kian Emmanuel Dulce.

Speaker 3

And the last time you were here, he was with you. He was, but he was in womb, not out of womb.

Speaker 1

Yes, he was in womb. I had the joy of sharing Kian's story with you all about a year ago, I think. And Eric was with me and we told the incredible story of how Kian was frozen as an embryo for 20 years. So yeah, his.

Speaker 2

What a miracle. This is incredible even.

Speaker 3

And you guys adopted the embryo through an organization called.

Speaker 1

It's called the National Embryo Donation Center. They are a faith-based organization. Their hope is to redeem. There are about a million frozen embryos in the US alone. Wow.

And our hope is that these little people would be adopted into wombs and then into homes and would live and not be given to science or not be discarded.

Kian's bio mom and dad donated him in hopes that someone would adopt him and raise him as their son. And it's our honor to do so.

Speaker 3

And tell Us what you did yesterday.

Speaker 1

Yesterday, Kian met his genetic mother and grandfather for the first time. Whoa. Yeah. Kian's story is just amazing. Last time I was here, I mentioned how I was looking for a scripture during this whole process. Cause it's very different to give birth to your adopted child. And I wanted the Lord just to ground my feet in a passage.

He sent me to Psalm 139 that talks about, you know, I knitted you in your mom's womb. But there's a part of the Psalm that says that even before my body was formed, you knew my unformed substance. And in your book, was every word of my story already written? God is writing an amazing story.

Kian's genetic mom is not parenting any children. They created five embryos, and they transferred the first two to her, and she was pregnant with twin girls. Sadly, they were born premature and they passed away. Those girls were born on August 11th. Exactly 20 years later, Kian was born on August 11th.

Speaker 3

Gives me chills.

Speaker 2

Who could write that?

Speaker 1

Who could write that? Wow. The greatest author.

Speaker 2

Yeah.

Speaker 3

So she's seeing a visible picture of what her twins could have looked like. Possibly. But to see Kian in the flesh must have felt incredibly miraculous to her and her father as well.

Speaker 1

She called it a miracle.

Speaker 3

She did.

Speaker 1

She did.

Speaker 2

And Kian's. What's it mean?

Speaker 1

So Kian means the Ancient One or the enduring One. And of course, Emmanuel means God with us.

So we like to say that our little enduring Kian is with us because the Ancient of days was with him and preserved him all those years.

Frozen prior. Preserved, I think, is what they call it. But there was still life. There was still life.

Speaker 2

And now it's like he's 41 years old.

Speaker 1

It really is.

Speaker 2

Wow.

Speaker 3

To think that God has known him even before he was formed.

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Speaker 3

In that little frozen embryo in before is pretty miraculous. And what a good reminder for all of us that God knows all of us. He knows our future. He's never forgotten one part of us.

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Speaker 3

Yeah.

Speaker 1

He's writing a story for all of us with all our lives.

Speaker 2

Yeah. I know we're going to talk about this a little bit, but it does make me think a lot of us and a lot of people feel unseen.

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Speaker 2

Even what we're going to talk about today in Moses and Exodus, there's some of that as well.

And I just want to give a call out. We have a place where you can go at Family Life. If you feel unseen, you can get resources and know that God sees you. It's familylife.com/unseen.

And so as we jump into this today, just know you can go there and understand that God sees you. We'll help you know that sometimes we...

Speaker 3

Just need to be reminded that God sees us.

Speaker 2

Yeah. So what's. You are redeemed. Tell us what this project is.

Speaker 1

Yes. So you are redeemed. It's a 40 day devotional. It's an eight week, five days out of the week, 40 total devotional that is written specifically for women and it walks women through the book of Exodus, through the story of Exodus.

Speaker 3

Why Exodus this time? Because you are definitely a Bible scholar. You love God's word. Why Exodus?

Speaker 1

The project is called Gospel Truths for Women. And what it is, is it's a devotional series that walks women through a specific book of the Bible. So when I was asked to be part of this project, I went instantly for the book of Exodus. It is such a.

Speaker 2

You got to pick it.

Speaker 1

I did.

Speaker 2

Oh, wow.

Speaker 1

Yeah. So I got to propose what it is that I would want to do. And it was Exodus. For me, it's an epic narrative. You know, if you tell the story of Exodus, you cannot tell it. Just think of a dramatic, epic movie with an incredible soundtrack.

Speaker 2

Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1

Behind it. That's what I think of.

Speaker 3

If you're older, you might remember the movie the Ten Commandments with Charleston Heston. And that was an epic movie.

Speaker 2

Dating ourselves.

Speaker 3

Yeah.

Speaker 2

But it's interesting. We both went the same middle school.

Speaker 1

Oh.

Speaker 2

Three years apart.

Speaker 1

Okay.

Speaker 2

So I was out of that middle school by the time Ann got there. But we both had the same choir teacher. Mr. Wilford.

Speaker 3

Yes.

Speaker 2

And I don't know when we were dating, at some point I just went.

Speaker 1

This land is mine. God gave this land to me.

Speaker 2

And I'm like, you sing that song. It was because they, you know, Mr. Wilford, that's all he knew.

Speaker 3

Well, we sang it like that because that's how he sang it.

Speaker 2

That's how he say it. But, you know, when I was at that middle school, not a churchgoing kid, not a believer, I did not even know where that song and what it was about. And it's about this epic. You picked the right book.

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Speaker 2

I would even either pick Genesis or Exodus.

Speaker 3

I would not have picked Exodus. Why did you pick it?

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Speaker 3

What do you mean?

Speaker 2

Why not?

Speaker 3

I mean, it is epic. But why? There has to be a personal reason why you wanted to do it.

Speaker 1

Well, two reasons. One, so I teach a course for women at rts and we.

Speaker 2

Tell us what you teach because it's really fascinating.

Speaker 1

It's called Women's Teaching Lab. And it's for really just women's ministry leaders and women who teach the Bible locally in the D.C. area. It's a fall and a spring course.

What it does is it equips women. It gives them eyes to see the Scriptures, and it gives them tools to dig into it. For the most part, these women are teaching other women, or maybe they're teaching children.

We want them to give their women and their children good stuff. We want them to give them the riches of God's word. And I think it's wonderful to train women to do that work well.

Speaker 2

And we need to train men the same way.

Speaker 1

Yes, we do.

Speaker 3

But we don't always get the opportunities as much as men, especially having babies and being busy. Okay, but why Exodus?

Speaker 1

Yeah. So we study Exodus in that RTS course. And so I'm. I felt comfortable taking on the project.

But the other reason is that the book of Exodus is such a beautiful picture of redemption. The title of the book is "You Are Redeemed: Devotions for Living a Whole New Life." It's a beautiful gem that foreshadows a greater redemption to come.

I think that the author—right, we talked about God being an author—when you look at the story of Exodus, he's pointing forward to something that's gonna blow our minds. Right. And it's so well captured and illustrated in the story of Israel's redemption.

So those were my two reasons I wanted to tell that story around the. Yes.

Speaker 2

And one of the things I'm thinking, as our listeners are listening, this would be something that as a mom goes through, I'm guessing we men are off limits.

We can't. I'm sure we could grab it and it'd be awesome.

But as a mom goes through this, this is something she could then transfer down to her kids, right?

Speaker 1

Absolutely. Yeah, it is. When you're writing a book, publishers and other people tell you, if you are on the elevator with someone, how could you quickly just summarize, right? The main thing, the elevator speech. Yeah, yeah.

And so for that mom, for that college student, for that whoever it is that's reading this, I want to convince them. When you hear that God loves you, he really loves you. His plan from the beginning was to dwell with you. You don't want to live with someone you don't love. Right from the very beginning, before creation, God's plan was to dwell with his people.

We know that the fall happened and this distance took place, but it did not take God's intention away. His plan has always been to dwell with his people. He sent his Son to redeem, to purchase us so that he can dwell with his people. So God intends to dwell with his people.

We see it from the beginning of Scripture. We definitely see it in the book of Exodus. He rescues this group of enslaved people, not just to send them into the desert to be free, but he redeems them for himself and tabernacles so that he can dwell with them. It's a small picture of what's going to happen.

Revelation 21:3 says that the place of God and man will be together. We will dwell with him. That's already happened in Christ. The Spirit is with us, but we're going to see the fullness of it.

And so I want these sisters reading this book to believe that he loves you so much, that the whole plan of redemption is to bring you to a place where you are with him and you are dwelling with him, and he is dwelling with you.

Speaker 3

Did that have anything to do with you naming Kian, his middle name, Emmanuel?

Speaker 1

I can't say that I was connecting it to Exodus.

Speaker 3

Okay.

Speaker 1

I wanted to name Kian Emmanuel because God was with him. This little frozen embryo. When Eric and I went to adopt Kian, we purposefully wanted to adopt embryos that were not as likely to be chosen. So if you want a chance at a baby, you want to choose maybe an embryo that's relatively younger, you want to choose an embryo that maybe you think might be, you know, more likely to live and to be born into the world.

But when we went, we were interested in a minority embryo that had been waiting for a very long time. So there were two embryos that we adopted. We named one of them Zion because he went home to be with the Lord in Zion. But God sent us Cain, the enduring one, and God was with him. So we named him Emmanuel.

Speaker 3

And isn't that so true, that God chooses the unlikely?

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Speaker 3

You know, those that are passed by and that feel like they aren't seen or nobody would choose. God does. He chooses us.

Speaker 1

He does.

Speaker 3

I think that's beautiful that you guys did that intentionally.

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Speaker 2

Well, walk us through a little bit. I don't know how much we can cover.

Speaker 1

Sure.

Speaker 2

There's a lot of chapters in the Exodus. Not as many as Genesis, but, you know, you start your study with God remembers.

Speaker 1

Yes.

Speaker 2

You know, the first week. I don't know if that's where you want to start, but take us on a journey. There's nobody Better.

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Speaker 3

And let me say to our listeners, this is an easy study and devotional to go through in that it's five days a week of study.

Each day begins with scripture reading in Exodus. I like that the Scripture's in there, and you also have an illustration that ties to it.

And I just like that you always tie the Old Testament with the New Testament. You draw them together and it makes sense why both are so important.

Speaker 1

Absolutely. Reading through this devotional, you'll get a good sense of the story of the Exodus itself, which is wonderful.

Speaker 3

Right.

Speaker 1

But I didn't want to leave you there. I wanted you to see a greater redemption.

I wanted you to see someone greater than Moses. And I wanted to take you from Mount Sinai to Mount Zion, which is a far greater mountain, because there we see a far greater covenant.

Speaker 3

And I love your questions that you bring into it at the end of each one that you're asking pertinent questions that help us to grow and see all of that and even apply it in our own lives.

Speaker 2

And as simple as this sounds, I don't think the majority of people have any connection with Genesis, Exodus to Jesus. You know what I'm saying?

Like, if you'd walk up to the average person and say, when did God first tell us that a savior was going to come? They say, oh, you know, the book of Gospel, Matthew, maybe.

Actually, in Genesis, the first three chapters.

Speaker 1

Yes.

Speaker 2

He gives us a signal like, this is the beginning. Thousands of years from this can happen. But I told you it all through Exodus. Oh, my goodness. So let's go.

Speaker 1

Yeah. I want to say that I want to believe Jesus when he told his disciples in Luke 24 that all of these scriptures point to him. I want to believe that that's true. So I want to read it, looking for, okay, Jesus, where is this pointing to you? I think we can see even in Exodus chapter two. That's a small place here that helps us to remember who Jesus is.

So, you know, speaking of God remembers, at the end of Exodus chapter 2, verse 24, I love how Moses is writing this story. He uses three verbs here that helped me to remember Jesus. So Exodus 2:24 says, "And God heard their groaning. And God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. And God saw the Israelites, and God knew." So God heard, God saw, and God knew. This is a group of enslaved people. We remember from chapter one that this Pharaoh was ruthless in how he really was abusing, subjugating, and killing the children of Israel, ordering that their children be thrown into the Nile. They're in a terrible situation. But God is not some distant God who's far away. He heard, he saw, and I love that he knew. He knew their pain. He knew what they were going through.

When I was writing my devotional, I started out the second day of the devotional with an illustration from a comedian named Rob Delaney. He makes people laugh, but he's written this very serious book about death because he went through the horrific experience of his young son, a 2-year-old, dying of a brain tumor. While his son was in cancer treatment, his sister's husband committed suicide. He says that he and his sister went through what he describes as an operatic level of tragedy—just unimaginable pain. He said now it's really hard for him to be in a conversation about suffering with someone who's never been through anything. As soon as he shares his story, there's a look that they give of almost being scared, and there's something about it that distances him from that person instantly.

But when it comes to his sister, because they've shared that experience together, it's almost bonded them. They know each other a little bit more. In Christ, we have a brother who's gone through an operatic level of pain. Right? If I can use Delaney's words, Jesus knows. The book of Hebrews talks about how he became like us and how he's experienced, except for sin, everything that we go through. Whatever you're facing that is so horrible—whether it's rejection, physical pain, or false accusation—Jesus understands.

Speaker 2

Betrayal.

Speaker 1

Yeah, betrayal. Jesus knows, he knows, he hears, he sees. But he's not a God who knows just because he's omniscient; he actually experienced it.

And there's something amazing about sitting across from a person who knows what you're going through because they've personally experienced it. This is our God. This is who Jesus is.

That's amazing to me.

Speaker 2

Yeah. I think in many ways it's the longing and question of every soul's heart. Does he hear me? Does he know me? Does he see me? I feel alone.

I think parents realize our kids sometimes feel that, and we get to be the embodiment of God's love for them. But I mean, I think it's everybody's question.

Here it is in the second book of the Bible.

Speaker 3

As I'm looking at this Nana, you ask in day two, do you believe that Jesus knows and sympathizes with your pain today? What about the person that says No, I don't. I don't believe that Jesus knows or sympathizes with my pain because I'm still in it.

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Speaker 3

And the Hebrew people were in it for a long time.

Speaker 1

Yeah. I think I've come to see more and more in my little Christian journey. I'm pressing on in age now. I'm 43. I'm pressing on a little bit.

Speaker 2

Yeah, you're way up there. You're like a kid.

Speaker 1

But I have come to see that God's intention isn't always to get us out immediately from painful situations. I think is to convince us that he is with us in that painful situation.

Speaker 3

Me too.

Speaker 1

And that we can trust him in.

Speaker 3

That painful situation because we think that love is removing us immediately from what we're going through because it's so painful. But you're saying that his love is really. That he remains with us.

Speaker 1

Yeah, he is Emmanuel, the God who's with us.

And remember, my big elevator speech for this book is that God wants to dwell with you. He is working right now to get you ready for the day when you are dwelling with Him.

And he uses those painful situations in that work of preparing us for Himself.

Speaker 3

Can you think of a really painful situation that you needed to know that he was with you?

Speaker 1

I certainly can. Like I said, I've been on this road a little while now, so this was an incredibly painful situation. I think it's still a little tender in some ways. I grew up in a family where I think a lot of our Christianity was cultural Christianity. We're immigrants. I was born in Ghana, West Africa. I came to the US when I was in fourth grade.

Like all immigrant families, we loved to gather with other immigrants who spoke our language, who ate our food, and who knew what we were going through. Sometimes that happened within the context of church because, you know, you're not working, you get together, and you're there all Sunday. For me, growing up, a lot of church was that. I didn't really know the Bible, I didn't know the Gospel, and I didn't love Jesus that much.

When I became a Christian, it was a little difficult for some members of my family because we were all Christian. We all went to church, we all read the Bible, and we all prayed. So, they wondered why I was suddenly wanting to tie Christianity so closely to my identity, making it so important and defining my whole life by it. As a result, some people began to distance themselves from me a little bit.

I saw this even when I married a very Christian man, my now pastor husband, Eric. There were some people who did not attend our wedding, and some who didn't meet my children for a long time. So, when you ask about a painful situation, that was painful—literally feeling alone for a very, very long time.

You know, there's a scripture that says, "If mother and father forsake you, I will not forsake you, but I will take you in." The Lord took me in, and we've never been without grandparent figures, auntie figures, and uncle figures. I'm here with you in Orlando, and my children are being cared for right now by an auntie from our church that they love as if she were blood.

So, the Lord took us in and showed how, even in that painful situation, He was with us through His people and through the church.

Speaker 3

Because life is hard. We go through some really hard times. When my mom was diagnosed with Alzheimer's, she's one of my best friends. And so to watch her suffer, to lose who she was, to grieve and mourn, that I think, humanly speaking, we can say, what is the point, Jesus?

Like, I just don't get, like, why she's so faithful, loving, serving. She loves you. Why would you take the last part of her life? You know, we can ask a lot of why questions. I think the real question is, God, what do you want me to know?

And for me, it was the same Nana. What I felt like he wanted me to know is I'm still with her, and I'm still with you, and there will be a day that you will rejoice together for all eternity. But if our hearts become bitter, it's hard to see his presence and his power in our lives.

Speaker 2

We did a service one time at our church that I don't know if it was on the Internet or whatever, where people. There was sort of this idea. You take a card or something, you put a word, one word that defines your life before Christ, and a word that defines after Christ. You turn it over, you try to match the word that sent, and you know what mine was.

I grew up with no dad. As I thought through what my word would be, it could be a lot of them, but the one that was dominant was "unseen." Like, I didn't feel seen. He wasn't there, and he didn't come back much. And then when I came to Christ, I realized I'm seen. I have a father who sees me and knows me.

All the things you just brought out of Exodus—he remembers, he hears, he knows, he sees—you talk about life changing. That's what today's been all about.

So again, I'll say this: If you're feeling what I felt, I felt that for 20 years—unseen. If you're feeling that, go to familylife.com/unseen. We'll help you know that you're seen.

Speaker 3

Yeah, Nana, we've talked before with you on some of these topics, and we've actually created a great devotional video series for people who are just wondering, does God see me again?

And our listeners, you can still grab that series now by going to familylife.com/unseen. We'll also link it in the show notes for you to get.

Speaker 2

Yeah, we'd also love to send you the book you are redeemed by Nana is not really a book. Is it a book or a book?

Speaker 3

It's a devotional.

Speaker 2

Yeah, it's a devotional book. So any amount of donation we will send you, you are redeemed. Go to familylifetoday.com you can do it there or give us a call at 1-800-358-6329. That's 800F as in family, L as in life and the word.

Speaker 3

Today we would love to pray for you. I would personally love to pray for you. And we even have a team at family life that can pray for you. Just go to familylife.com prayforme.

Speaker 2

Family life today is a donor supported production of Family Life, a crew ministry helping you pursue the relationships that matter most.