Wrapping Our Minds Around It

             Then Moses went back to Jethro his father-in-law and said to him, “Let me return to my own people in Egypt to see if any of them are still alive.”

Jethro said, “Go, and I wish you well.”

 Now the Lord had said to Moses in Midian, “Go back to Egypt, for all those who wanted to kill you are dead.” So Moses took his wife and sons, put them on a donkey and started back to Egypt. And he took the staff of God in his hand.

The Lord said to Moses, “When you return to Egypt, see that you perform before Pharaoh all the wonders I have given you the power to do. But I will harden his heart so that he will not let the people go. Then say to Pharaoh, ‘This is what the Lord says: Israel is my firstborn son, and I told you, “Let my son go, so he may worship me.” But you refused to let him go; so I will kill your firstborn son.’” (Exodus 4:18-23)

The first thing Moses does on returning home is lie to his father-in-law. The second thing he does is pick up his security blanket, his wife and son. Did he also lie to them? The third thing is that he was told by God to perform wonders, but that Pharaoh would not cooperate. He would not cooperate specifically because God would harden his heart, and ultimately, he would kill the Pharaoh’s son. This was information he had before he left Midian.

After the Israelites left Egypt through the Red Sea with the promise that they would worship on a mountain and later settle in the land promised to their ancestors, they consistently found it impossible to remember and believe what God had said.

When Jesus told the disciples, repeatedly, that He was going to be killed but that He would rise again, they consistently found it impossible to remember and believe what He had said, or even to understand it.

For that matter, Adam and Eve were told they would die if they ate from a certain tree. Eve expanded the restriction to touching it, but the point was that she did remember what God had said. She just couldn’t believe it or understand it.

Several ideas come from these observations. First, even those who are supposed to be spiritual leaders are still human, still flawed, still making mistakes, and still doing foolish things. As someone said it, “When God put a calling on your life, He already factored in your stupidity.”

The second idea begins with the reminder that God is not limited to one reason, purpose, or goal per action. What He told Moses should have strengthened Moses’ faith. The ten plagues on Egypt that would follow weren’t meant just to teach the Pharaoh a lesson for disobeying God. They weren’t meant only to teach Egypt the error of its ways. They were also designed to teach the Israelites obedience and faith. And, they were meant to teach Moses to trust in God even when people and events weren’t going according to his plan because God was in charge.

But he doesn’t seem to have kept the information in his working files. Instead of telling the Israelites who complained to him about Egypt’s reaction to him or the lack of something that “It’s OK, it’s all in God’s plan. Hang in there,” he complained to God about God’s behavior because the Pharaoh wasn’t acting according to Moses’ expectations. We don’t know how much of the history of Israel Moses actually knew, but we have the Bible full of examples of people who couldn’t understand or retain what God told them He was going to do. We also have examples in which what someone wanted wasn’t given, but things turned out well (or better) for them. But we can’t seem to wrap our heads around it. I suspect God would love to hear, “Oh yeah, You did say ___.  OK, we’ll go with that.”

The third point is that you don't have to be perfect for God to call you, use you to do great things, call you His friend,  speak face-to-face with you, or turn you into one of the heroes of the faith.