1. God wants surrounding nations to revere his people, he wants them to have an easy ride through the wilderness on the way to the promised land. So, he ensures that Pharaoh does not let them go easy! The children of Israel encountered untold hard times, their punishments increasing, their labour increasing, their challenges getting tougher, only so that God could create a story that everyone would hear and find difficult to forget!
He kept them under pharaoh like the world is under sin and satan, so he could show a pattern for the Passover lamb – His son! He kept it all going, so His story can be read, before he real act would be acted. He fit everything to the same date, as Christ would die. Perfect story!
Are you going through hard times? There is a bigger picture. God is passing you through, so he can pull you through. God is gathering comfort with your life, so that His glory can be seen in all the surrounding nations! It’s not about you, it’s about the bigger picture and bigger point that God wants to make with your life. Endure the pharaohs, it will make all who are less, fear fear!
2. God takes the children of Israel through the 11 days wilderness journey for 40 years. They keep going round in circles and circles without clarity following God’s lead, but turning in circles. I have a slight feeling of how frustrated they must have felt, making movements, but not making progress. Working hard, seeing no results! Moving forward, but ending right where you thought you had mastered 5yrs ago!
Well God had a masterplan. God figured, if I took out all the nations before them in one fell sweep, the wild animals would be too much for them to contend with, so God in His infinite wisdom thought, what’s the point in getting them there only to become food for lions. Why not allow them arrive strong, able and capable! (Deut 7:22)
Sometimes we want to ask God why? Sometimes people around us want to ask too! They seem puzzled we seem to be learning the same lessons twice, thrice, maybe even four times.
They seem confused that all their contemporaries and ours seem to be doing fine, even great, and they wonder if something hasn’t gone wrong, that we are matching around like this. Well take comfort in the God of the universe, who sees the big picture, and is working it all out to deliver you right where you are meant to be at His time, which is the right time! Never fall into the trap of comparing or competing, one with God, is majority!
3. God calls Moses, and he responds, “I am a stammerer”, He beacons on Jeremiah, and he replies “But I’m too young and unskilled”. God calls Amos, and he thinks, “but I’m secular, certainly not a prophet”. Sometimes those whom God would use, do not see themselves the way God sees them. Unknown to them, long before they found themselves in the picture, long before they became conscious of their journeys, God’s plan was hatched. Long before their father’s spam collided with their mother’s egg, purpose existed in the mind of God!
Are you thinking less of yourself than God thinks of you? Throw away the excuses. He who calls graces! And yes, you are called, to influence your sphere of influence positively for God! He placed you there, and gave you influence – over 1, 2, more! He doesn’t deal it lightly. He has expectations. The least we could do, is disciple a few. Don’t say you don’t have what it takes, it’s been there before you noticed it!
Adeolu Akinyemi
Pastor, Entrepreneur, Nation Builder
Currently gathering comfort, to comfort others with!
