Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Out of Egypt

A couple years ago my daughter introduced me to the song "Painting Pictures of Egypt" by Sara Groves. I was going through a difficult and emotional time and she thought that it might describe just how I felt. She was right. Although I knew beyond any shadow of a doubt that I was being obedient to all that God had asked, and wanted nothing less than that, my heart ached for the familiar and the comfortable. I like being content.

It is easy to be out of a setting or situation and look back and only see the good or the bad and never the true mixture of both. I don't know anyone who is still drawing breath that doesn't have both good and bad of some sort in their life. They may not choose to acknowledge the good or the bad, but they are there at different times and in different forms.

After the Israelites were rescued from captivity and bondage and slavery and taken out of Egypt, they frequently looked back during difficult or uncertain times and asked that they be allowed to return to Egypt. Somehow looking back made the slavery seem almost desirable, because they had forgotten how horrible it was and only remembered whatever good there might have been in it. While the season I longed to go back to certainly was not bad, I will never know what might have happened had I chosen to stay in the familiar and not be obedient to God. As my daughter also will say "they were romanticizing the past". As odd as that might seem to us now looking back several thousand years, I don't think we are really that far removed from the possibility of falling back into our slavery and bondages of sin or strongholds if we don't continue to keep our eyes on the Lord and in His Word. Our knees to the earth also help to keep our feet from walking down a dirt path in the wrong direction.

I'm not really sure what the actual moment was or even now how I knew, but in the past few days I have finally realized that I am no longer desiring the things of the past that I gave up three years ago. While they were good and I am oh-so grateful for every opportunity and lesson that God afforded me during that season of my life, I am even more thankful for the opportunities that lie ahead.





2 comments:

Jenilee said...

thanks for the link to the song!

gypsy chic said...

Going through the wilderness is hard, confusing and sometimes we just want to give up completely for better or worse in sheer exasperation. I'm glad to hear you continued on as an example to the rest of us...