April 16 – 29, 2018
God Writes My Story
To My I55 Sisters,
Curled up in my chair with a cup of coffee, I began my devotional time this past January in Genesis 1, like I do most Januarys. Genesis and Exodus usually rush by in a blur because the stories are familiar—like meeting up with old friends. There’s one passage, though, that is more like that annoying neighbor you hope to avoid. You know the one, “but God hardened Pharaoh’s heart.” Those words have always bothered me. Why would God do that? Why would it please him for someone to NOT obey him?
So this year, again, I came to the Exodus stories and wanted to hurry past those verses, telling myself that God was God and could do whatever he wants and I’m not going to question it again. But God is teaching me some things this year that changed my understanding of that verse. Why had I never noticed it before?
First let me say the reason I don’t like this verse is because it makes God seem cruel—like a cat toying with a mouse. Somewhere in my mind I’ve made Pharaoh into a victim who would like nothing more than to obey the voice of God but is unable to. And my thoughts always extend to the New Testament idea of salvation, intimating that Pharaoh is not being given a chance to repent and believe for eternal life.
But that is NOT what this verse is about. Exodus 5:2 clearly states that Pharaoh is not a worshipper of God. He gives God no heed or respect. He says “Who is the LORD that I should obey His voice to let Israel go? I do not know the LORD.”
The question is never if Pharaoh will become a believer in God, it is exactly when and how will Pharaoh bend the knee to a greater power and admit defeat. This verse is about God being sovereign and powerful over everything and everybody. It’s about Him going to battle for His people.
This is a man with no faith—no righteousness. And yet he is not able to thwart God. And even more, he is used by God to strengthen the faith of His people. In Exodus 10, God explains in detail. “I have hardened his heart and the heart of his servants, that I may perform these signs of Mine among them, and that you may tell in your hearing of your son, and of your grandson, how I made a mockery of the Egyptians, and how I performed My signs among them; that YOU MAY KNOW THAT I AM THE LORD.” In John 20:31 John says that signs were given so that we would believe.
The whole purpose of this exercise was to build the faith of God’s people. God knew what man is made of and that they needed some pretty memorable events in order to believe when the going got tough. He needed some markers to point them to, to say, “remember…I did this for you.” He did it for them and for their sons and grandsons and even for you and me. God knew just what it would take to make the Hebrews HIS people. God was “working all things after the counsel of His will.” (Ephesians 1:11)
This year, instead of cringing when I read the words of Pharaoh’s hardened heart, I marveled at how nothing and nobody is able to thwart God’s plan—not Pharaoh with his power and bravado as he defied Moses, and not Pharaoh in his natural cowardice when he might have sent them away temporarily to save himself some grief, only to pursue later on his timetable. God wasn’t going to let Pharaoh write the story. He was going to finish the captivity once and for all—destroying any possibility of retaliation while giving the Israelites evidence of His greatness.
God is writing my story too. Romans 8:30 says that He has predestined, called and justified me and He will glorify me. I can trust Him to finish what He started. Philippians 1:6 says that “he who began a good work in me will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” Romans says (8:31) “If God is for us, who can be against us?” Nobody. Not even a pharaoh. Praise God that He is sovereign and that He is working to write a beautiful prose on the pages of my life.
In Him,
Karen
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