“We did what God told us to do. Why didn’t Pharaoh let us go worship God?”
Moses shrugged. “Hopefully the leaders of the people will have some answers for us after their meeting here.”
The door to the palace opened. The Hebrew contingency approached Moses and Aaron.
“You said you were going to lead us out of here and back to the land God promised to Abraham. All you’ve done is make our lives worse. Why don’t you just go back to the desert you came from?”
“First they stop bringing us straw. Then they tell us we have to find our own. Now they demand we keep making the same amount of bricks whether we can find any straw or not.”
“The beatings aren’t worth this false hope you gave us. Just leave us alone.”
Moses watched the men leave.
Aaron grabbed Moses’ sleeve. “What are we going to do now?”
Moses shook his head. “This wasn’t my idea. I need to talk to God to see where we went wrong.”
Moses walked off for solitude. Aaron followed the Hebrews back to Goshen.
When he felt alone Moses dropped to his knees. “Why have You sent me here? Things have only gotten worse. You haven’t delivered Your people at all.”
The voice from God shook Moses’s bones and made the hairs on his arms stand up. “Now you will see how I’ll deal with Pharaoh. Not only will he let My people go, but he will drive them out of his land when I’m done with him. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob knew Me only as God Almighty. You will know Me as YHWY and will become My people. I will be your God as I fulfill My promise to bring you to the land I gave to Abraham.”
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I’m so glad God included this in Moses’s experience to lead God’s people out of Egypt. He thought all he’d have to do is go in, tell Pharaoh to let God’s nation worship Him and that would be all there was to it.
Don’t we all think like that?
We hear God’s voice, or read a scripture verse that feeds a longing to do something for God. Then we set out to do it knowing God has prepared us for this. Only to be stymied and stopped before we even begin.
How many times have you read this story of Moses leading the people out of Egypt and missed this event?
Failures are not final. Set backs are not set in stone.
Moses kept at it. So must we.
It took ten massive miracles displaying God’s power over all the Egyptian gods before Pharaoh relented to Moses’s request.
Several months passed before Moses saw success.
Don’t be surprised when you see the same seeming failure.
God is building your perseverance, strength and resolve.
When a chick breaks its way out of an egg the struggle builds muscles that bird will need to survive.
Moses would have to intervene for God’s people several times in the next forty years. His sticking to the task now helped him see the bigger picture in the wilderness.
An easy early success leads to a prideful attitude. You’ll start to think you can do this in your own efforts and power.
The more you must trust God to come through for you the more successful you’ll be in the long haul.
Embrace failure as your crutch to lean on God for success.
God introduced another intriguing bit of nuance to His relationship with Moses and His people during this conversation. It occurred with a name change.
Names carry significance in the Bible, especially God’s names.
Adam knew God as God. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob knew God as God Almighty, the God above all other gods.
Many translations of the Bible print this new name for God as LORD with all capital letters.
The Hebrew language didn’t use vowels so this new name came out as YHWH and was pronounced Yahweh. Some folks preferred to say the Y and W with hard tones so they prefer the name Jehovah.
The way this name is pronounced or spelled isn’t as important as the meaning of this new name.
God was now coming down to intercede and intervene for His people. No longer would He come to speak to a single individual on God’s timetable.
Beginning with this prayer Moses approached God with an issue and God replied to the item at hand.
Moses would later speak to God on a mountain, then in the Tent of Meeting while in the wilderness.
God would lead His people with a cloud and give them guidelines to live by.
But, first He had to display His power to the Egyptians to prove His dominance and dominion.
God Almighty was becoming more approachable and real.
Now that we live on the other side of the cross where the final transaction was accomplished with the phrase, “It is finished.” We are adopted into God’s spiritual family and we call Him “Abba.”
It’s a very intimate name that’s the first century equivalent to Daddy today.
God is still very much dominant, preeminent and powerful. There is no other higher than Him.
But, with the adoption papers signed with the blood of Jesus He’s not only approachable He’s as intimate as a father.
The Creator of the universe who spoke everything into existence desires our attention.
He gave us the Bible to not only see the relationship change throughout the centuries, but to give us guidelines to live by and to speak to us today.
Prayer is our means of expressing our emotions and desires to Him.
Jesus gave us an example of how to live this out when He would go off by Himself to pray.
I’ll never forget seeing my mom reading her Bible in the middle of the kitchen while us seven kids ran through the house playing on winter days.
Take your relationship with God seriously enough to make a difference.
I’ll see you later. Wade
