KneEmail - a devotional by Mike Benson associated with Forthright Magazine
Patience
SOMETIMES GOD ALLOWS trouble to continue in order to teach us to be patient...
Moses seemed to think that the exodus would commence the moment he started obeying God. But godliness does not guarantee immediate results, and God's plans often take a long time to develop, while he reveals his glory through the gradual unfolding of his purpose. In this case the Israelites had been waiting 400 years for their salvation. Although God could have saved them at any moment, that was not his plan...
THOUGHTS: ...We need to show a little patience by taking a long view and resisting the urge to quibble with God's timetable. We also need to be cautious about deciding whether something is God's will by looking at how it is turning out right at this moment. At the first sign of trouble (Exo. 5:22-23) Moses was ready to give up, but he needed to keep doing what he was called to do because God was still at work (Philip Graham Ryken).
KneEmail: "Then the LORD said to Moses, 'Now you shall see what I will do to Pharaoh. For with a strong hand he will let them go, and with a strong hand he will drive them out of his land.' And God spoke to Moses and said to him, "I am the LORD. I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, as God Almighty, but by My name LORD I was not know to them. I have also established My covenant with them, to give them the land of Canaan, the land of their pilgrimage, in which they were strangers. And I have also heard the groaning of the children of Israel whom the Egyptians keep in bondage, and I have remembered My covenant. Therefore say to the children of Israel: 'I am the LORD; I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, I will rescue you from their bondage, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great judgments'" (Exo. 6:1-6).