Let My People Go
Speaking of desert experiences, the Israelites were running from a very hurtful person and a very hurtful situation where they had lost so much. I'm sure many of us can identify with this. I was drowning in this a few years ago and one day God brought me a question. "Who's YOUR Pharoah?" That is a weird thought (surprise! What? Susej has weird thoughts? No Way!), but it started an important thought process for me. Who is that person that has given me a hard time or hurt me so badly and for no reason? Who is the person who has limited me when all I wanted was what I had asked for, needed, and certainly deserved? Whose choices have caused me to suffer? There have been only a few people in my life that I would put into this category. The work of deliverance that happened for the Israelites was of epic proportion and I think this Pharaoh analogy/concept should be saved for the most life-altering, devastating, and senseless hurts.
One example would be a devoted spouse that wants nothing more than to save their family and would do anything to make it work, only to be refused and/or abused by a spouse that abandons them. Or maybe a boss that does nothing but discourage, hold you back, and take away opportunities from you and you don't have the luxury or freedom of leaving until you find a better situation. The list could go on and on, but these situations can result in the loss of dreams, opportunities, affect entire families for generations, waste years of your life, etc.
Much like Moses repeatedly going before Pharoah, asking for the deliverance of God's people, in these situations, there is no reason for the injustice. It often hurts everyone for the situation to continue, but the Pharoah's heart is hardened and he keeps. saying. no. What a frustrating story! And to make matters worse, it says that GOD hardened Pharoah's heart. This used to be such a hard message for me! Why?! Why would God allow someone's heart to be hardened? Now, am I saying that this makes it God's fault? I think a lot of people WOULD say that, but I don't agree. Stay with me. You know what the easiest part of the story is for me? The easiest part for me is that I get to sit outside of the story, at a vantage point far in the future, and know that there is going to be a wonderful outcome. Unfortunately, that's usually not how I see the seasons of hurt in my life. And just like the Israelites were told that they were being taken out of slavery, I have been told that my God has good plans for me and he knows well those plans and that they are to help me and not to harm me.
So, why the Pharoah drama? Ultimately, I'm not sure, but my belief is that God may have allowed them to have a hard time, so that they would be so dedicated to leaving Egypt behind, they would never want to go back. You didn't like that reason? Try this one: God used the plagues (or in our cases, calamity) so that His people could see His power to save and deliver. I've never seen God perform a plague in my life, but I have noticed that all my "pharoahs" seem plagued with some pretty major issues. Also, here's a point I don't want you to miss. I don't think God is sitting around dreaming up plagues to put us through to help us earn character or to show us his muscles. However, I do believe that "plagues" exist in our world in many ways and that God will use everything evil that tries to touch us for our good. I also believe that, regardless of the severity of the devastation that we are touched by in this world, God will take everything and use it for out good. I truly believe that He doesn't allow things to to happen to us that would not be for our good.
**Irreconcilable Differences
Let me stop there for a minute. I know what some of you are thinking right now: something so terrible happened to you that nothing good could EVER come out of it. You may also be very angry and asking "what kind of God would allow something that bad to happen to me?" And you know what? I have nothing cheesy to say to you about that. I relinquish my pat answers and my apologies. If you are at a point in your life where you feel this way (and you may have lived at that point in your life for more years than you can count), I have nothing to say to you but "I love you" and I'll hold you while you cry. Anyone who tells you anything different needs to have sand thrown into his or her sensitive places. I will also offer you my prayers for healing, closure, redemption, a new vision for the future. I would also like to add that I have witnessed countless redemption stories of suffering that still doesn't make sense and never will. Some of the strongest people who have suffered the most and they are often used to deliver or protect the most people from the devastation they suffered. Okay, there you go. I love you.
Okay, back to the Pharoah. I have one more theory on why they may have gone through that horrible saga before their deliverance from Egypt. I think that God also uses these situations as teaching tools. They all learned how to listen to God, how to trust in God, and how to follow God. And hey-Moses got the worst crash course in leadership I have ever heard of and I bet he had to grow very quickly. This was great preparation for him to lead God's people to the promised land! I'm sure that made him feel better, right?
Having said all this and giving you a couple of reasons I think that this story played out as it did, I'd also like to point out that it didn't take the Israelites very long to start complaining about the long desert journey. Heck, they were soon after were wishing they were back in slavery. Can you imagine? I can. I do that all the time. I ask for something and then I get mad when it's not easy or I can't see the light at the end of the tunnel. I get upset when God gives me a good promise, something bad happens, and I can't see what it's for. And still I whine.
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