Forgetting Past Miseries

"The LORD said, ‘I have indeed seen the misery…I have heard them crying out, and I am concerned about their suffering, so I have come down to rescue them…and bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land filled with milk and honey.” Ex. 3:7-8.

As God looked down from heaven He saw a group of people whom He loved…His children…His chosen.  They spoke during the day of how many hours they worked and the extreme circumstances required of them.  They would no doubt drop in bed at the end of the day with no energy to even enjoy life.  They sat in groups at meal time rehashing the harshness of the day and how miserable their lives had become.  They had plenty of resources but lacked contentment and joy in their lives.  God was saddened to see His children joyless and enslaved by their lives.  He stood up from the throne and responded to their cries of unhappiness.  He sent a passage out of their miserable lives, but little did they know that deliverance to joy was on the other side of a desert.  What was their response?

‘The Israelites said to them, ‘There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve.’ Ex. 16:3.  How quickly misery turned to freedom and freedom back to misery.  They longed for delivery and after receiving it they longed for their former lives…slavery again.  They glamorized how their lives in Egypt were great because they focused on what they had…not the way they felt.  If they had only remembered the suffering from which they had come, they would have been more accepting of where they were.  They were impatient, stubborn and short-sighted people who would end up never seeing their spacious land of milk and honey.  They mistook the desert for punishment instead of deliverance.

When we are discontent with our lives and cry out to God, we must be willing to accept the path of deliverance that God uses to answer those prayers.  When living in the tension of the in-between… where we were and where He is taking us… we must remember how miserable we were in our past circumstances and trust Him for joy and freedom in our future circumstances.  ‘Yet the LORD longs to be gracious to you; he rises to show you compassion… Blessed are those who wait for him.’ Isaiah 30:18.

When our Father rises on our behalf, we must kneel on His behalf and honor the path of deliverance which He has determined best.