Getting out of Egypt

The Israelites were slaves in Egypt for 430 years. Then Moses led them out, with the intention of bringing them to a land God had long ago promised to Abraham. It would probably take them a month to walk that. Two at the most. Its only about 400 miles. Instead, it took them 40 years. Why so long? I’ve heard theologians say, yes Moses had taken them out of Egypt. But now God had to get the Egypt out of them.

They hadn’t been out of Egypt for more than a day or two when they saw the Egyptians chasing them. They were now between the advancing Egyptian army and the Red Sea. Their response? It wasn’t, “Oh wow! I wonder what God is going to do to help us with this!” Nope. It was “Is it because there are no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness? What have you done to us in bringing us out of Egypt? Is not this what we said to you in Egypt: ‘Leave us alone that we may serve the Egyptians’? For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness.” Exodus 14:11,12. Right away they regretted leaving Egypt and got all snarky with Moses and God. This went on time and time again. It wasn’t enough that they walked across the bed of the Red Sea with walls of water on both sides. Or that later they experienced other miracles, like having fresh water from a rock. Or the mysterious manna appearing every morning to feed them. Or quail suddenly “raining down” from the sky. Or their clothes and shoes never wearing out. Every time something challenging happened, their thoughts didn’t turn to God, they turned to Egypt.

Now let’s talk about us. We were born into a sinful world. We don’t know anything but sin. We may have had the best parents in the world, which isn’t the experience of a lot of people, we were still surrounded by sin in the form ugly, mean, selfish people and not good situations. We were, in effect, born and raised in Egypt. Then God delivered us. He freed us from the bondage to sin that had defined our whole life. And, even though we say and think we are grateful to be freed, it’s a really rough life and the promised land isn't in front of us like we expected. We're actually wandering in the desert. We don’t know what it’s like to be free of Egypt. We have to learn. And repeatedly we get challenged with bad things happening, whether in the form of people meaning us harm or just life circumstances. “Where are you God? Why is all this happening? I don’t get it, I thought you were going to take care of me.” And on and on, just like the Israelites. We grumble and complain instead of trusting that God is trying to show us His provision, his love, his greatness. And not just to us but to those around us who are watching our reaction. Maybe they'd like to come with us on this journey out of Egypt.

That is probably a big reason why we go through what we go through. God is trying to get the Egypt out of us so that we can trust Him and be grateful for what we don’t see yet. There will come a day when we will indeed be ready for the promised land. In the meantime, it’s to our benefit to allow God to get the Egypt out of us.