I often find myself complaining to God when He allows difficult situations to come into my life. I argue with Him a bit that I am trying my hardest to walk with Him … therefore, He ought to make my way easier! I think that makes total sense! God doesn’t always agree with me, and hard times seem to continue to happen. I am sure that for all of the 430 years the Israelites were in captivity to Egypt, they were crying out for freedom from their bondage. Many surely thought that God had forgotten them as generation after generation after generation died in the time of captivity in Egypt.
Just as God did with the Israelites, He has a divine plan and divine timing for our freedom from the difficulties of life. Today I was reading the psalmists review of the history of Israel’s escape from Egypt. There was one phrase in one verse that really caught my eye and then my heart. “He [God] brought them forth also with silver and gold: and there was not one feeble person among their tribes” (Psalm 105:37). When reading this verse previous times, I focused on the fact that God blessed them with good favor from the Egyptians, and they left with a good bit of silver and gold.
Today it touched my heart that “… there was not one feeble person among their tribes.” How did that happen? 430 years of building pyramids will do that for a person! They had been under a tremendous load during their captivity. Remember that Pharaoh had ordered them to even harder work during the time that the ten plagues were happening. When the time came for the Israelites to leave Egypt, all the hard work of their slavery had prepared them for the forty years of wandering in the wilderness that they would need to endure.
All the complaining they might have done before about the conditions in Egypt, were part of the training grounds for their exodus across the desert country. Because of the strenuous work load that they had endured, they were ready for the obstacles that the trip to the Promised Land posed to them. The difficulties that you might be facing today, or tomorrow, are all preparation for what God knows is in front of you. Someone once said, “What doesn’t kill you will help you.” I believe that God allowed the difficulties of physical labor that these folks had been involved in to help prepare them for the challenges that were ahead for them. I’m equally sure that the people complained and looked forward to days of ease when they escaped Egypt. If it were not for the hard times, they would never have known the absolute joy of touching their feet on the land God promised. We are no different. Don’t complain today … build those spiritual muscles!