Yesterday I met Mom in Durham to watch a movie called Waiting for Superman. The documentary about the public school system began with a man talking about how when he was little his mom told him that Superman wasn't real. He said that he wasn't disappointed because like Santa Claus, Superman wasn't real but because it meant no one was coming to save them.
How heartbreaking. And how applicable.
I've been reading the book of Exodus lately. Here was a group of people living like no one was coming to save them. It seemed as though they were forgotten. Little did they know, God was training a leader out in the desert, with the sheep. Here's where I struggle: God brings Moses back to Egypt to save his people but he doesn't just have pharaoh release the Israelites the first time. They have to wait. They have to make bricks with straw and watch as God hardens pharaohs heart over and over. The people wonder if Moses lied to them so Moses goes to God saying "You have not rescued your people at all." More often than not, it seems that we are waiting on God. If you're like me, you wonder why. You wonder what God is doing, or what he's waiting for. We know that he has called us to be his people and that he has promised to provide and that he says he loves us. Sometimes I catch myself thinking that God must have other things he's worrying about. More important things like genocides, for example, than small Emily in Greensboro. But if God cannot care for me now, if he is not giving me what is best for me now, than he is not all powerful, nor is he good. (Of course there is the discrepancy of what I think is good, and what he thinks is good.) God tells Moses that he is doing things his way because he wants them to have no doubt in their minds that he is the LORD who has redeemed them (Exodus 6). But Exodus goes on to say, "So Moses spoke thus to the children of Israel; but they did not heed Moses, because of anguish of spirit and cruel bondage."
Have I given up on a Savior? Have I decided that because life is hard and full of struggles that God is not good and working?
Today (and the day after, and the day after, and the day after)I choose to believe that hope has come, and that when I stand looking back over the red sea of life, I will know that the LORD is almighty, that he hears what I say to him, that he will bring me safely to himself some day. I think it is a conscious decision to not get swept up with idols that seem to promise safety, but instead to believe in an Infinite that is true.
Exodus 14:13-14 And Moses said to the people, “Do not be afraid. Stand still, and see the salvation of the LORD, which He will accomplish for you today. For the Egyptians whom you see today, you shall see again no more forever. 14 The LORD will fight for you, and you shall hold your peace.”
currently listening to: Guster, Satellite
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