Monday, February 1
How quickly we forget!
Scripture: Exodus 13-14, Acts 8
Exodus 14:11–12 They said to Moses, “Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you brought us to the desert to die? What have you done to us by bringing us out of Egypt? 12 Didn’t we say to you in Egypt, ‘Leave us alone; let us serve the Egyptians’? It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the desert!”
Observation
How quickly they forgot! Exodus begins with the Egyptians enslaving the Israelites, oppressing them and working them ruthlessly. The Egyptians “made their lives bitter with harsh labor.” They were even forced to infanticide, killing their newborn sons. They groaned in their slavery and cried out to God for help.
And God answered! He sent Moses and delivered the people through a series of powerful acts of judgment on the leaders and gods of Egypt. But at the first sign of trouble, as Pharaoh and his army pursued them, they forgot all their former misery and all that God had done to free them, and they wanted to go back to Egypt, to “safety.”
“Leave us alone. Let us serve the Egyptians.”
Application
How quickly we forget! No matter how many times God has saved us, helped us, intervened for us, we tend to have the “what-have-you-done-for-me-lately” attitude. We forget God’s grace and goodness and stupidly think that we’d be better off back in our chains. We let our own immediate safety trump everything else, and are willing to exchange God’s freedom for slavery if it means we can be safe (although I fail to see what was safe about slavery in Egypt).
Here’s my challenge for today: when I face difficulty, danger, uncertainty, or hardship, rather than doubting God, I want to remember all His faithfulness to me and trust that He’s got me once again! Lean in, don’t run away! Trust Him! He’s fighting for me!
Prayer: Lord, I’m facing some uncertainties in my life, and I choose to remember Your faithfulness to me, over and over. I will trust You. I will lean in to You. I will not run away!