Read with Me
Exodus 5:20-23 (HCSB)
When they left Pharaoh, they confronted Moses and Aaron, who stood waiting to meet them.
“May the LORD take note of you and judge,” they said to them, “because you have made us reek in front of Pharaoh and his officials—putting a sword in their hand to kill us!”
So Moses went back to the LORD and asked, “Lord, why have You caused trouble for this people? And why did You ever send me? Ever since I went in to Pharaoh to speak in Your name he has caused trouble for this people, and You haven’t delivered Your people at all.”
Listen with Me
The people came away from their meeting with Pharaoh frustrated and angry. And it didn’t take any further provocation for them to focus that frustration and anger at Moses and Aaron. After all, Pharaoh himself had pointed to them as a reason for their now insurmountable workload.
Moses was confused by this response. Since he was working at God’s command, he expected the path forward to be easy and the results instantaneous. But now, he was not only facing a seemingly insurmountable blockage in Pharaoh, but the Israelites themselves were angry at him, rejecting his message. His mind instantly went back forty years to when he had tried to save an Israelite man from an Egyptian who was beating him. The Israelites, instead of being grateful, had hurled accusations at him, and then one of them had told the authorities that he had killed the Egyptian, causing Moses to have to flee to Midian.
Moses’ response to come to God for clarification was correct. His attitude, however, was not. Instead of coming to Him for further direction, he came with anger and bitter accusations. He pointed to God as a source of his frustrations and of the new problems that the Israelites were facing.
God could have smitten Moses right then. But He understood that, at this point in his life, he knew practically nothing about who God is and how he works. And he didn’t understand that responding to God’s call on a person’s life does not lead to immediate success and endless bliss here and now. Instead, God calls people to join him in the arduous task of reshaping the world by reshaping people, one person at a time. And that requires the cooperation, often grudging and heavily resistant at first, of the people being reshaped. Moses had responded, and he had obeyed. But he was at the starting line of a long race, not at the finish line.
Pray with Me
Father, despite the numerous illustrations all through the Bible and the testimony of Jesus Himself that the road that ends up in Your presence is not the wide easy road, I think we still have the idea that if we say yes to You, the way will be easy. We like the place where Jesus promises us an easy yoke and rest for our souls. But we don’t want to accept the place where He tells us clearly that anyone who follows him must take up our own cross and follow Him in the path of self-sacrifice. Help me, Lord, to allow You to not only direct my path, but to even shape my expectations so that I stay true to Your calling even when the way is hard, rocky, and uphill. Amen.