As I was reading the Exodus story this week, I thought about all of the childhood memories I have learning the story. Most of the memories are happy childhood Sunday School times studying how God spoke to Moses through the burning bush, how Moses repeatly when back to Pharaoh to ask for freedom and repeatly opened the door for God to demonstrate his power, and then who can forget the dramatic Red Sea crossing?
In thinking about the story about the plagues and the Red Sea crossing, it amazing to me how deliberate God is in his plan. God promises to deliver his people "...I will redeem you with a powerful arm and great acts of judgement. I will claim you as my own people, and I will your God. Then you will know that I am the Lord you God who has freed you from your oppression in Egypt" (Exodus 6:6-7). God's plan is to show his might to the Eygptians before he will lead the Hebrews to freedom. We see how Pharaoh's heart remains hardened and stubborn (Exodus 7:13, 8:15, 8:19, 8:32, 9:7, 9:12, 9:35, 10:20, 10:27, 14:8), while God works displaying his dominion over all things. Tied to God's strength and power is the verse that stuck out to me this week, "The Lord himself will fight for you. Just stay calm" (Exodus 14:14). I needed to hear these words, I tend to want to solve everything on my own, and I tend to be very anxious about, well just about everyting. What a great reminder - and command - for me.
God's pursuit to demonstrate that he is Lord to the Egyptians (and Hebrews, I think), made we wonder how often do we play Pharaoh and harden our own hearts to God's call out to us? God may not be sending 10 plagues, and opening up the sea for us to cross, but, I do believe that he is continually revealing himself and his presence in our lives. It's just up to us to have open eyes, hearts, and minds. God will stop at nothing to have us with him, and his ultimate demonstration: He sent is own begotten Son to be the sacrifice to take away our sins (1 John 4:9-10). I pray that because we know God is powerful and that he loves in ways we cannot understand as humans, we may trust God to work through us in his time to reveal to us the amazing things he has planned for us.
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