Fellow Travelers,
There are times in our lives where God seems to be distant and uninvolved. In these times we may feel like crying out with the Psalmist:
“Awake! Why are you sleeping, O Lord?
Rouse yourself! Do not reject us forever!
Why do you hide your face?
Why do you forget our affliction and oppression?”[1]
The nation of Israel faced times like these, and one example comes from Exodus chapter 5. The story is during Israel’s slavery in Egypt, while Moses was pleading with Pharaoh to let Israel go to worship God. Pharaoh was stubborn because Israel was a vast (and free) workforce for him. Instead of letting Israel go, he decided to punish them. Pharaoh commanded his taskmasters: “You shall no longer give the people straw to make bricks, as in the past; let them go and gather straw for themselves. But the number of bricks that they made in the past you shall impose on them, you shall by no means reduce it, for they are idle. Therefore they cry, ‘Let us go and offer sacrifice to our God.”[2]
With their jobs suddenly much harder, the people of Israel complained to Moses: “The LORD look on you and judge, because you have made us stink in the sight of Pharaoh and his servants, and have put a sword in their hand to kill us.”[3] Even Moses became discouraged and frustrated, as we see in the next verses: “Then Moses turned to the LORD and said, “O Lord, why have you done evil to this people? Why did you ever send me? 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.”[4]
It seemed like God was “sleeping.” Like He had forgotten His people’s “affliction and oppression.”
However, we know that earlier God told Moses: “I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters. I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites.”[5]
God was not sleeping; He has “surely seen” what was happening. He also had not forgotten; He had a plan “to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians,” even if it wasn’t apparent to Moses and the people. Their frustration grew because time had passed since God made His promises, and they still hadn’t been delivered.
Do we often feel the same frustration? Do we often feel His deliverance should come sooner? We know in our minds that God sees the effect of sin on the world, and on each one of us. We also know that He has promised to return and deliver us from our sin. But time keeps passing.
From our point of view, we have information Moses and the people didn’t have. We know that Israel did eventually enter the “broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey.” It took time, but it happened when God determined it was the right time. When His people were truly ready. Therefore, we know that God will also deliver us when He determines it is the right time. When His people are ready. Not because we see certain signs or our interpretations of prophecy have been fulfilled. We have the gospel “as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.”[6] When the time is right, according to God (not according to us), all will be aligned under His plan. Things we currently know and see, and things not yet revealed. Only God knows.
In the meantime, do we give God the right to determine the method and timing of our deliverance? Or do we impatiently insist on our own way and timing? Would we have chosen this world as the path to heaven, or would we have designed a different way, if given the choice? Because this is the world we have, we know God chose this way, and we must trust Him, for only Jesus is “the way, and the truth, and the life.”[7]
Sometimes things look to us like we should cry out to God, “you have not delivered your people at all,” but He delivered Israel from Egypt in His time, and He will deliver us in His time. He guarantees it.
[1] Psalm 44:23-24
[2] Exodus 5:7-8
[3] Exodus 5:21b
[4] Exodus 5:22-23
[5] Exodus 3: 7b-8
[6] Ephesians 1:10
[7] John 14:6
