"Now the sojourning of the children of Israel, who dwelt in Egypt, was four hundred and thirty years.
And it came to pass at the end of the four hundred and thirty years, even the selfsame day it came to pass, that all the hosts of the Lord went out from the land of Egypt."
Exodus 12:40-41
These verses struck me today because I was thinking about the children of Israel and how hard it was for them to adjust to the hardships of their journey and to life outside Egypt, and these verses seemed to actually explain it all. None of them knew, except in stories passed down to them, what any other life was really like. Even though life was not good for them as a slave class, they only had stories and dreams of freedom, and it was hard for them to trust in the unknown and unseen destination rather than wanting to turn back to what they knew. We think of the plagues of Egypt as punishment of Pharaoh and his people, but in retrospect wasn't it perhaps also the only way to get all of the Israelites committed to leaving, and to discourage them from returning even later when they really wanted to?
I think our lives are like this as well sometimes. Even though we plead to God for relief, we don't always know how hard deliverance will be. God saved Abraham's life and Lehi's life, and the lives of many others throughout the scriptures, by telling them to flee and that he would bring them to a promised land. The children of Israel is the same story. But leaving is *hard.* Change is hard. It is hard to go into the wilderness, even the proverbial, symbolic kind. Part of it is that even though we don't want the slavery, we often do want the simplicity of many of the things associated with that lifestyle. For instance, we don't want people ordering us around, but we love the free food. :)
I think maybe we should change our expectations of what God offers us. We ask God for deliverance and we subconsciously expect something easy. Maybe an angelic chauffer will come and drive us to the freedom of a mansion, or to the dock or the heliport to get to our yacht or private island. We want freedom and familiarity. Freedom and free wi-fi, at least. :) Unfortunately, the easy things and the good things aren't often the same. Life requires us to stretch and grow and expand our comfort zones. We have to be willing to trust in the destination that God plans for us and accept the answers to our prayers, even when the way is more difficult that we expected it to be.
Today, let's continue to reach for freedom and deliverance and everything good, but let's also recognize that those things are going to be hard work and that they are going to stretch us and teach us. We want God and his goodness, but we've been away from him so long that we don't always understand the personal change that heaven requires. The promised land is always worth it, but it can be uncomfortable and taxing as we adjust. Let's do it anyway, and keep following and stay faithful, trusting in God that where we are going is infinitely better than where we have been.
And it came to pass at the end of the four hundred and thirty years, even the selfsame day it came to pass, that all the hosts of the Lord went out from the land of Egypt."
Exodus 12:40-41
These verses struck me today because I was thinking about the children of Israel and how hard it was for them to adjust to the hardships of their journey and to life outside Egypt, and these verses seemed to actually explain it all. None of them knew, except in stories passed down to them, what any other life was really like. Even though life was not good for them as a slave class, they only had stories and dreams of freedom, and it was hard for them to trust in the unknown and unseen destination rather than wanting to turn back to what they knew. We think of the plagues of Egypt as punishment of Pharaoh and his people, but in retrospect wasn't it perhaps also the only way to get all of the Israelites committed to leaving, and to discourage them from returning even later when they really wanted to?
I think our lives are like this as well sometimes. Even though we plead to God for relief, we don't always know how hard deliverance will be. God saved Abraham's life and Lehi's life, and the lives of many others throughout the scriptures, by telling them to flee and that he would bring them to a promised land. The children of Israel is the same story. But leaving is *hard.* Change is hard. It is hard to go into the wilderness, even the proverbial, symbolic kind. Part of it is that even though we don't want the slavery, we often do want the simplicity of many of the things associated with that lifestyle. For instance, we don't want people ordering us around, but we love the free food. :)
I think maybe we should change our expectations of what God offers us. We ask God for deliverance and we subconsciously expect something easy. Maybe an angelic chauffer will come and drive us to the freedom of a mansion, or to the dock or the heliport to get to our yacht or private island. We want freedom and familiarity. Freedom and free wi-fi, at least. :) Unfortunately, the easy things and the good things aren't often the same. Life requires us to stretch and grow and expand our comfort zones. We have to be willing to trust in the destination that God plans for us and accept the answers to our prayers, even when the way is more difficult that we expected it to be.
Today, let's continue to reach for freedom and deliverance and everything good, but let's also recognize that those things are going to be hard work and that they are going to stretch us and teach us. We want God and his goodness, but we've been away from him so long that we don't always understand the personal change that heaven requires. The promised land is always worth it, but it can be uncomfortable and taxing as we adjust. Let's do it anyway, and keep following and stay faithful, trusting in God that where we are going is infinitely better than where we have been.
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