They say if you put a frog in cold water in a pan on the stove and start heating the water, the frog will not jump out. You can take it all the way to boiling and the frog stays there because it is not aware of the change or the danger. I wonder if the Israelites weren’t a bit like that in Egypt… they were losing their relationship with God and getting into the Egyptian culture. It was getting close to boiling and they still weren’t jumping out. They weren’t noticing that they lost their interest in the Covenant with God.
Amazingly, they were even so comfortable in that culture, they didn’t seem to mind being enslaved by it. They just worked hard and kept enjoying the ‘good things’ in Egypt.
After Moses met with Pharaoh and requested they be allowed to go sacrifice, Pharaoh made life even more miserable for them by requiring them to make the same number of bricks without straw provided. They had to gather the straw too. Was God taking the water up to boiling trying to help them see they were living in bondage and needed to leave Egypt? God had promised them they could be free in a land flowing with milk and honey, yet here they were… still in Egypt.
The Israelite people were mad at Moses for making things worse for them. They still didn’t see God working to free them and using Moses to do this. They saw Moses as the bad guy messing up the good thing they had going. God had a huge job getting their attention!
What was God doing while Israel was sweating under the increased load? We know from reading Scripture that God was meeting regularly with Moses and giving him specific things for him and Aaron to do as they met with Pharaoh and went through plague after plague. But what did the Israelites see happening from their perspective? And what was God doing with them while he was sending plague after plague to Egypt?
I think God was getting them ready to leave Egypt, helping them want to leave. He was:
1. Teaching them that they were living as slaves – not as heirs of the Covenant with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
2. Teaching Egypt that there was a God and they weren’t it! (Pharaoh’s officials got it before he did! Exodus 10:7)
3. Establishing Moses as their leader. Teaching Moses to lead and the Israelites to follow.
4. Teaching Moses to listen to God’s voice and obey.
5. Teaching Israel that they were special, set apart .
6. Teaching patience in all.
7. Teaching both Israel and Egypt God was a powerful God, able to do far more than they could imagine.
8. Teaching Israel that there would come a time to celebrate and how to do that well.
When they finally left Egypt, the people were ready to go, ready to follow Moses and ready to follow God to their Promised Land.
I wonder what I might be allowing to enslave me, keeping me from the fullness of what God has planned for me. I wonder when things become difficult in my life, do I think God has forgotten me? Or do I look for what he is teaching me to prepare me for the next journey in my life? Even as I walk through my valley of sadness at the sudden death of my 28-year-old son, do I beg God to take away my pain, or do I look for what God is doing to call me even closer to himself – to seek him and follow him with my whole heart?
Sometimes I get impatient and want God to act quickly. But God has a plan for me… “’For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you,’ declares the Lord, ‘and will bring you back from captivity.” Jeremiah 29:11-14
If I can’t see what God is doing, that doesn’t mean he is not doing anything. It means I need to be seeking him with all my hearts so he can show himself to me and I can become part of his solution rather than working against him.
I don’t think God wants us to be too comfortable in our Egypt. He wants us to remember that our Promised Land (heaven) is ahead of us and he wants us to live like the heirs to his kingdom that we are rather than being comfortable living as slaves in this world. Going through a difficult time is sharpening my focus. It is removing distractions and clarifying who I am and where I am going. It is increasing the urgency that others be introduced to my loving God so they can get their journey going in the right direction as well.
Father, fill me with your Spirit of Life and Love. Help me to live my life well so others will seek you and find you and join us in the land that you have promised to all who follow you – our eternal home in heaven. Amen.
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