Exodus 1:1-14
Israel quickly becomes an incredibly strong nation after the death of Joseph. At this time, Israel was multiplying, however, a new Pharaoh rose to power in Egypt. As a result of this, he made sure that the Israelites would suffer, for as long as possible. He had slave masters over them, and forced them to work hard labor and treated them ruthlessly. I'm not sure how long this occurred for before Moses came into the picture but I'd assume that it happened for quite a while. I am sure that many of them questioned where God was, and why they were experiencing intense distress and a lot of afflictions. Could anyone blame them for growing in disbelief, when they could not physically see what God was doing at this point in their lives? When the Lord takes us through sufferings, the afflictions and distress just seem endless, and there are times where God makes us wait during those difficulties even if we'd prefer it all to just be over. But it is important to note, that God does not use sufferings in our lives to harm us, but to mold and shape us into the image of Christ. It's hard to understand why certain things happen or don't happen, in fact, most of the time God doesn't even give us a full explanation at all, but He does want us to trust Him. Just like the Israelites, we also have experienced an abundance of God's blessings and we've seen Him do a lot of miracles, but sometimes we tend to get distracted by the blessings and miracles themselves, and lose focus on God Himself therefore, He places hardships in our lives in order for us to recognize that we've lost focus. Sometimes, we can do the exact opposite, which is to seek other things to satisfy us. But just because we cannot see that God is doing something good, does not mean that He actually isn't, it's just that when we fix our eyes on the circumstances themselves, that we miss out the good and the blessings that God has for us. In fact, we can get so caught up in wanting to see the blessings in our lives, that we tend to ask God to bless us more rather than to reveal more of Himself to us. Shouldn't God Himself be the biggest blessing in our lives? It's not about the miracles and should not just be about the miracles. It should always be about the God of miracles.
-Bernadette Cabrera
Photo by Steve Halama on Unsplash
