Haven’t we all engaged in a project, hoping to improve a situation but the result we experienced not only did not turn out as we wanted but rather worsened the situation? That was exactly how Moses must have felt. He had hoped that the people of Israel would be granted the pilgrimage he came to seek for them. He had hoped that they would be able to go into the wilderness to offer their worship to the LORD. Moses should have known better not to expect too much from Pharaoh, for after all God had warned him to expect resistance from the king. God had warned him that the king needed to be compelled before he would send the children of Israel away in a hurry. But we all know that knowing before things become worst is one thing, but experiencing it would be quite another. We all knew that Pharaoh had had it good for a good forty years. He had had people whom he so ably organized into bonds. And they did his bidding and built his great monuments at no cost. So, when Moses and Aaron turned up with the request, he became more aggressive and made greater unreasonable demands of the people.
It took a great while for God to convince Moses why he needed to do what he had done. The LORD literally went through a great length to bring him to a point where he finally agreed to take on the assignment. Moses probably could accept if Pharaoh wouldn’t grant his request immediately. But to have the people that he came to set free turned on him was more than he could take. But what could he expect from a people who had been oppressed? To have greater oppression was not what they had bargained for. Without a doubt, Moses’ assignment was right smack at the center of God’s will. He should have a smooth and unhindered path, right? Wrong, Things went awfully wrong for him. The people blamed him for their plight. Moses, however, did the right thing by coming to God and downloaded his disappointment on Him. He sought the answer from God. And that’s what we should do when we cannot understand what we are going through. There is no point berating the people who seek to help us. It is pointless to blame God.
In the first five verses of Exodus 6, we see God reaffirming His intention for His people. He said in verse 1, “Now you shall see what I will do to Pharaoh; for under compulsion he will let them go, and under compulsion, he will drive them out of his land.” And He went on further to remind Moses that He had a covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob though, at the point of cutting the covenant, He did not reveal His covenant name, the LORD to them. And God was not about to renege on His word. He had no intention to leave the people in their mournful condition for He had heard their cries and saw their plight. Furthermore, He had promised to bring them into their land as He had promised.
God’s timetable for our life may not always dovetail into what we have hoped for. Like the children of Israel, God knows that we all need to develop patience. We all need to be able to take a long-term view of God’s plan for our life and not allow hardship on the way to destabilize our trust in Him. We must learn to keep our eyes focused on the larger scheme of God’s plan and know that He will never fail. Like Jesus, we keep our eyes on the end-goal. He came to set us free to worship Him and that’s the ultimate. Stay on it no matter what!
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