Brittany Rust

In Numbers 21, the people of Israel are worn down in the wilderness and they begin to speak against God and against Moses: Why did you bring us out here? There’s no food, no water… and we hate this food.

Their complaining is really rebellion, and as a result, the Lord sends poisonous serpents among them. And people start dying.

They go to Moses and say, “We have sinned.” They own it, which is the right thing to do. And then they ask him to pray that God would take the serpents away.

But God doesn’t remove the snakes.

Instead, He tells Moses to make a bronze serpent and lift it up on a pole. And anyone who is bitten can look at it to live.

It’s such a strange instruction… until you realize what God is doing.

The pole becomes both a reminder of their sin and their need for God, but also an invitation to trust Him. Because healing didn’t come from the bronze but from the Lord. But they had to look. They had to respond in faith.

Maybe that’s why God didn’t take the snakes away. Because every bite became an opportunity to depend on Him again.

Sometimes we pray for God to remove the situation and He doesn’t. Not because He’s absent, but because He’s inviting us trust. To keep looking to Him. To keep depending on Him.

And then Jesus brings it all into focus.

In John 3, He says that just as the serpent was lifted up in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, so that whoever believes in Him would have eternal life.

That moment in the wilderness? It was always pointing forward. To Him. To the cross. To the Savior who would be lifted up so that all who look to Him in faith would not just be healed, but saved.

Today, we don’t look to a pole. We look to Jesus.

And while He may not always remove the struggle, He does meet us in it… inviting us to trust that He is still working.

Today is the beginning of Holy Week—those last days of Jesus on earth and the Resurrection. It’s a week we take to intentionally reflect on all Christ did for us those final moments.

Save this post and reference the second slide for the readings of the week, or you can access the plan on YouVersion. But I hope you’ll carve out time each day this week to read these Scriptures, reflect on the text, and spend time with the Lord ❤️

Looking for gifts for your kids this Easter? I got you covered…

▪️ 5-Minute Family Devotional: short devotions for families with kids under 10, working through the Bible from Genesis to Revelation.

▪️ Pr***en Devotional for Girls: 52 devotions—1 for each week of the year—working through aspects important to young teens in a biblical way.

▪️ The Bible in 52 Weeks for Teen Girls: one year in the Bible… comes with a reading plan and teaches the Bible along the way.

One thing I care very much about in books I write for young people is to provide something a bit meatier than most books for them. It’s the mom and the pastor in me. Personal testimony: I worked through 5-Minute devotions with Roman and after reading the one about baptism, Roman asked to be baptized (after already surrendering his life to Christ a year before) and was baptized at church soon after! And the amount of testimonies from girls reading the teen devotionals is astounding 🙌🏻 I hope you’ll pick a copy up for your own kiddos!

A link to all my books is in my bio link but you can also get them everywhere books are sold.

HER Night was beautiful ❤️ God showed up in a thousand ways! I’m truly grateful to be part of what God is doing in and through NL Women, and for the team I get to do it with.