Monday, June 15, 2026
Scripture Readings
- Primary Reading: Exodus 32-34
- Secondary Reading: Psalms 69
Key Verse
Exodus 33:12 — “And Moses said unto the LORD, See, thou sayest unto me, Bring up this people: and thou hast not let me know whom thou wilt send with me. Yet thou hast said, I know thee by name, and thou hast also found grace in my sight.”
Devotional Thought
It is mid-June, the season when gardens are staked and watered, when vacation plans are made and the long light of evening invites us to linger outside. It is also, if we are honest, a season of waiting. We wait on test results, on prodigal children, on a job that never materializes, on a prayer that has gone unanswered so long we have stopped expecting an answer. Exodus 32 opens in exactly that kind of waiting. Moses has been on Sinai forty days, and the people below grow restless. “As for this Moses,” they say, “we wot not what is become of him.” Their impatience becomes idolatry. Aaron collects their gold, fashions a calf, and builds an altar. What strikes me is how quickly the waiting people of God traded the living LORD for something they could see and control—and how they dressed it in worship language, calling the feast “a feast to the LORD.”
Notice what happens next. God tells Moses He will consume the people and start over with him. Moses intercedes, appealing not to Israel’s worth but to God’s own name and covenant. And God relents. Moses comes down, breaks the tablets, burns the calf, and calls out, “Who is on the LORD’s side?” Three thousand fall that day. Yet the story does not end in judgment. Moses goes back up and offers himself in their place: “If not, blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book.” Then God reveals His glory: “The LORD, The LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth.” This is the God we serve—holy enough to judge sin, merciful enough to forgive it, and patient enough to keep covenant with a stiffnecked people.
Psalm 69 sounds the same note from another angle. David cries out from deep waters, hated without a cause, zealous for God’s house while reproach breaks his heart. “I looked for some to take pity, but there was none.” He asks God to hear him “in an acceptable time.” That phrase should stop us. There is an acceptable time, and it is now. The psalmist teaches us to pray from the mire rather than to pretend we are on solid ground.
So what does this passage ask of us today? It asks us to examine what we have made while we were waiting. Have we fashioned something manageable to go before us—a habit, a grudge, a screen, a plan—and called it worship? It asks us to remember who God has revealed Himself to be: merciful, gracious, longsuffering. And it asks us to intercede. Moses stood in the gap for people who deserved judgment. Who is in the gap for you, and for whom are you standing?
Reflection
- While you have been waiting on God this season, what “golden calf” have you quietly fashioned to go before you—something visible, controllable, and dressed in worship language?
- Moses offered himself for a people who had sinned greatly. Who in your life needs you to stand in the gap and intercede this week, even though they do not deserve it?
Prayer
O Lord, The LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth: we confess that while we waited, we have made gods of gold. Forgive our stiffnecked hearts. We cannot see Your face and live, yet You have shown us Your back parts and proclaimed Your name over us. Hear us in the acceptable time. Draw nigh unto our souls and redeem them out of the deep waters, for Your lovingkindness is good. Make us a people on the LORD’s side, zealous for Your house, and let Your presence go with us, for that alone separates us from all the peoples of the earth. Amen.
Psalm Verse
Psalms 69:1 — “Save me, O God; for the waters are come in unto my soul.”