#DailyDevotion What On Earth Are You Doing Lord?
Lent day 33 Friday
Read Ex 5:1—6:1
Exo 5:22-6:1 Then Moses turned to the LORD and said, “O Lord, why have you done evil to this people? Why did you ever send me? (23) For since I came to Pharaoh to speak in your name, he has done evil to this people, and you have not delivered your people at all.” (6:1) But the LORD said to Moses, “Now you shall see what I will do to Pharaoh; for with a strong hand he will send them out, and with a strong hand he will drive them out of his land.”
Well it seemed like a reasonable request, “Let us go and worship our God in the wilderness for several days.” But God had a plan. Pharaoh already was hardened against the Israelites but now he had it set in his mind they had too much time on their hands. The Lord therefore hardened his heart even more and set it against the Israelites. They had to gather their own straw for the bricks and the Israelites in charge of their brethren were beaten if they did not still come up with the same quota, which they didn’t. They were then set against Moses and Aaron.
Moses, in turn, turns to the Lord. “Lord, why did you do this? Why did you send me? Nothing has happened but evil since I got here.” How often do we too wonder what the Lord is doing when we think we are doing everything correctly? Indeed, we might be doing everything, as humanly possible what the Lord has given us to do. Yet everything seems to be going wrong. I know pastors often feel this way. But the rest of God’s people also have this happen to them as well. It seems as if God is against us. This is the mystery of bearing the cross. The Lord is not against us. He just has bigger plans than we can comprehend at the moment. Our faith is being purified.
Now the Lord answers Moses (we wish we could hear the voice of the Lord who would explain things to us) and tells him now you will see what I will do to Pharaoh and how with a powerful hand he will not only set them free but drive them out. As we shall see in upcoming days, it won’t be as quick as we might have hoped. Moses and the Israelites will be wondering, when are you going to get this done? It had been 400 years since they’ve been in Egypt. The majority of the suffering was only for the last several generations of Israelites from what I can tell. But God’s timing is not our timing.
I believe it is a fact, we don’t always see what the Lord Jesus is doing in our lives or see the end of it while we are still breathing. The sufferings we endure may be for our lifetime and it is only when we see the face of God that we will finally understand what he was up to that whole time. This requires faith. We have God’s promises in Christ Jesus. Through these promise we become partakers of the divine nature (2 Peter 1:4). The Israelites had the Lord’s promises and believed, but they faltered too sometimes.
Heavenly Father, grant us faith to believe you know what you are doing and that what we endure in this life is for our good and your glory so we may see your face and be participants in your divine glory. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.