So I started by asking the Lord to speak to me through a passage of His Word that I'm pretty familiar with. God is faithful, and He did it. Here's what jumped out at me for the first time:
I have hardened [Pharaoh's] heart and the hearts of his officials so that I may perform these miraculous signs of mine among them that you may tell your children and grandchildren how I dealt harshly with the Egyptians and how I performed my signs among them, and that you may know I am the LORD.
Exodus 10:1-2
Here's what I found interesting. God is speaking to Moses and He tips His hand a bit. He says, "Hey Moses, here's what I'm going to do: I'm going to cause Pharaoh to resist you, and, by proxy, Me and what I'm eventually going to do anyway. The reason I'm going to do this is to show off for you guys -- you're going to know that I am the LORD; you're going to have some incredible stories to tell your kids and grandkids."
I think it's fair to say the Israelites had it much harder then than American Christians have it now (strangely, we seem to complain at least as much as they did). But my point is this: it's pretty easy for us lately to get discouraged by how hard things are getting.
Let's face it, the economy stinks. A lot of us are out of work, have been out of work for months, or don't have enough work. We're wondering where the rent it going to come from or how we're going to buy groceries.
The dominant culture runs counter to everything the Christian stands for -- fornication, adultery, perversion, sodomy, sexual immorality have gone from grave sins to prime time laugh lines in a few short decades.
Our political reality is one where our elected leaders listen to us and get shot down (at best) or arrogantly vote contrary to our core values (at worst).
I could go on, but who needs to? In short, things are getting hard.
Frustration comes because we expected something different. Somewhere we were told that if we just prayed a prayer and "asked Jesus into our heart" that the rest of life would be The Brady Bunch meets Touched by an Angel. As Paul would say, by no means! Jesus said he came to give us life abundantly, not life easily. Yes, God wants to bless us, just as it is natural for earthly fathers to want to bless their children. But blessing your children does not mean paving their streets with gold and helping them avoid any and all adversity (actually, it means just the opposite).
I heard the Lord say this morning that sometimes life isn't easy -- but -- it's for a reason. It is so that He may perform miraculous signs among us that we can tell our children and grandchildren and their faith may be strengthened. It is so that we may know that He is the LORD.
Later in this passage, the LORD tells Moses about His plan to kill the firstborn male in every household in all the land. "This one will do it," He tells Moses, "so get ready to go" (I paraphrase Exodus 11:1) He then tells Moses to tell His people to ask their (captor) neighbors for silver and gold. (That must have been interesting. "Listen, I know I'm your slave, but do you think I could have the flatware and your earrings?") But the word tells us:
The LORD made the Egyptians favorably disposed toward the people.
Exodus 11:3
Which tells me that the LORD does want to bless us and that adversity is not incompatible with blessing but often precedes it.
