The Old is New

Sitting in Bible Class listening to Kari talk about Pharaoh and the Plagues...

I've heard this story, I've read this Scripture, I know it through and through, I can still hear Charlton Heston's "Thus Saith the Lord God of Israel..."

and yet when I read it today I'm absolutely knocked over by things I've never seen before.  Do you not just LOVE how God can do that?  

Seriously!  We're talking about Moses and Pharaoh and LET MY PEOPLE GO, and I can remember it from Sunday School when I was a kid, but then

 - BAM! - 

The Great I AM busts on the scene and says, oh Danny, let me make this all fresh for you, now here, read it like you're reading it for the very first time, I've made it brand new!"   

I watched my wife use a Basilik branch and pretend to paint the doorway of the church just as the Israelites did, and then she swung the iron gates shut. They screeched and ground close with a clanking like that of a prison cell.  It was like we were all right there, in silence, holding our breath, the sun setting, knowing that Angel of Death is coming, and only that blood on the doorpost will spare those you love...

Do you know what nailed me this time?   

Pharaoh's pride is finally broken, the slaves are leaving so quickly there's not even time to bake the bread, and where is our Lord?   Is He checked out?  Is He too busy?  Is He too exhausted from all the Supernatural and maybe He's sleeping?   We find Him over in Chapter 12 of Exodus, in verse 42:  "Because the Lord kept vigil..."

He's right there, in the thick of it, running surveillance, attentively watching, observing every last step of every man, woman and child that are HIS.  

Our God cares.  

He knows your storms and trials, in fact most of them are designed and custom fit for you, to bring you into a more beautiful relationship with Him.  Sometimes those trials are hard, because sometimes we're hard-headed.  Sometimes they hurt because they stretch and bend us to the point of breaking. Pride can fester and it takes peroxide and a good scrubbing to disinfect the wound.  I can testify to my own stiff-necked stubbornness.  Try to pick up a child who doesn't want to stand, try to make someone sit who doesn't want to sit.  The simply possible becomes the insurmountable wrestle of the wills, and sometimes He's just got to reach down and touch your hip, Jacob, to show you His authority. 

But the truth is that He's not waiting out there in the Somewhere, on the other side of the rainbow, hoping you might find the way. You're not Dorothy, following some Yellow Brick Road while Oz waits behind the smoke and mirrors. 

God is right there with you.  

Walking with you.  Hurting with you.  Wrestling with you. 

He knows whether you'll be victorious or whether you'll fail, and He loves you regardless.  His desire is for you, to turn from sin, from yourself, to persevere, to endure, to grow, to know Him more.

He's keeping vigil, right now, for you today, and there can be no other deductive reasoning, no other scientific hypothesis to explain that which is staring you blindly in the face, what you're heart is already screaming...He's crazy about you.