Knowing God

Day 17

Knowing God

(The Hard Way)

‘How long o Lord’ the psalmist sings, and our human hearts echo his words. As years roll on with pain and disappointment and darkness. How long Lord? How long? 

The psalmist, he knew this song because his people had lived it. Waiting on God. For, how long? 

There are days when ‘how long’ feels like too long. 

They were slaves. They were the children of slaves. Freedom was a foreign thing. They were in chains and with every clank and grind their chains spoke loudly of hopelessness. Of abandonment. 

‘How long’ felt like too long.

For generations power had bent them down, ground them down, down to dust. But they were not just dust. A wisp-thin flicker of hope lingered in their memory. They knew that God had made their forefathers a promise…something… a faint whisper of a blessing and a purpose, a presence and a promise. A lingering understanding that God intended good for them. Somehow. 

Somehow. Their story wasn’t done yet. They believed. 

‘Moses and Aaron brought together all the elders of the Israelites, and Aaron told them everything the Lord had said to Moses. He also performed the signs before the people, and they believed. And when they heard that the Lord was concerned about them and had seen their misery, they bowed down and worshipped..’ Exodus 4:29-31

Before freedom comes worship, because worship breaks chains we cannot even see.

God is in the business of breaking chains, every bond that binds us, every scar that numbs us, every barrier between us and Him.

‘Afterward Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and said, “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘Let my people go, so that they may hold a festival to me in the wilderness.’”

‘Pharaoh said, “Who is the Lord, that I should obey him and let Israel go? I do not know the Lord and I will not let Israel go.” 

Then they said, ‘The God of the Hebrews has met with us. Now let us take a three-day journey into the wilderness to offer sacrifices to the Lord our God, or he may strike us with plagues or with the sword.’

Exodus 5:1-3

Let’s get one thing clear from the start. God, in the long tread of time, always wins. There is never really an argument between the light and the dark. Only a defeat. The dark may be tangible, but the light is unquenchable. 

But darkness doesn’t give up without a snaking fight.

‘That same day Pharaoh gave this order to the slave drivers and overseers in charge of the people: ‘You are no longer to supply the people with straw for making bricks; let them go and gather their own straw. But require them to make the same number of bricks as before; don’t reduce the quota. They are lazy; that is why they are crying out, “Let us go and sacrifice to our God.” Make the work harder for the people so that they keep working and pay no attention to lies.’ Exodus 5:6-9

‘The Israelite overseers realised they were in trouble when they were told, ‘You are not to reduce the number of bricks required of you for each day.’ When they left Pharaoh, they found Moses and Aaron waiting to meet them, and they said, ‘May the Lord look on you and judge you! You have made us obnoxious to Pharaoh and his officials and have put a sword in their hand to kill us.

Moses returned to the Lord and said, ‘Why, Lord, why have you brought trouble on this people? Is this why you sent me? Ever since I went to Pharaoh to speak in your name, he has brought trouble on this people, and you have not rescued your people at all.’ 

Exodus 5:19-22

There are days when it can look like all is lost.  Like our prayers have gone unheard and unanswered. When ‘How long’ feels like too long.

But sometimes what we see, we see only in part. What we hear is not all there is to hear. What we feel is not the whole truth. There is always more,  purpose unfolding surely. Light breaking into darkness.

“I have heard the groaning of the Israelites, whom the Egyptians are enslaving, and I have remembered my covenant. Therefore, say to the Israelites: ‘I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians. I will free you from being slaves to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with mighty acts of judgment. I will take you as my own people, and I will be your God. Then you will know that I am the Lord your God, who brought you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians. And I will bring you to the land I swore with uplifted hand to give to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob. I will give it to you as a possession. I am the Lord.’” Exodus 6:5b-8

Redemption is not a past time for God, an idle whim or a toss of the dice. In just eight verses (Exodus 6:1-8) God spoke with active personal pronouns twenty four times…

 ‘I will take you as my own people, and I will be your God. Then you will know that I am the Lord your God’.

 It was personal. Deeply personal.

God wasn’t just fighting for Israel’s freedom from oppression. He was fighting for their freedom for connection. With Him. Because that is where true freedom is found. We are emancipated from darkness for the Kingdom of light. The Kingdom of His son.

“For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness

and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves”

Colossians 1:13

God had given His word to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. And He will, one way or another fulfil it. Not because their descendants earned it or deserved to receive it, but because His heart is always faithful to His word.

A swell was rising out of the silence. The waiting years of sweat and blood and tears were over. God’s intentions, His good plans for His people were  about to crash on Egypt’s shores like a tsunami. 

“Who is the Lord, that I should obey him and let Israel go? I do not know the Lord and I will not let Israel go.” 

Pharaoh was about to know this God. In fact Pharaoh’s whole world would become filled with the knowledge of the glory of God.

‘For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.’

Habakkuk 2:14

God began as He did in the beginning. With His word. Genesis chapter one describes God creating this whole flourishing world simply with His word “Let there be…”. 

This story in Exodus described God commissioning all the natural world, creatures and climate alike, in a call to arms, to redeem Israel from enslavement, with His word “Let… my people go”

There were seven days of creation in Genesis chapter one. Here in the Exodus story there are seven times that God said ‘Let my people Go so they may worship me’. This was not a creation project, but a re-creation project, a restoration project. In Biblical thought seven is symbolic of completion and wholeness, and that is exactly what God is working to re-create. 

Staffs became snakes; the Nile flowed with blood (7:17-18); frogs rose out of the Nile (8:1); dust became gnats, filling the air (8:16); flies filled the spaces left by the gnats (8:21); a plague destroyed Egypt’s live stock (9:1-3) and an outbreak of boils plagued people and animals alike (9:9). A thundering hailstorm hurled ice like bricks, crushing life (9:22-26) and surging locusts devoured what remained (10:3-5). Finally a tangible skin-flinching darkness enveloped the light all over Egypt for three days (10:23) like a great reversal of God’s first creative word ‘Let there be light’.

God partnered with His creation to bring Pharaoh to his knees.

But even after all this turmoil, still Pharaoh held his clenched-fist grip on Israel’s freedom. Seven times God said to Pharaoh through Moses ‘Let my people go so they may worship me’ and nine plagues later Pharaoh was still immoveable. Every time Pharaoh repented, God removed the plague, and every time He did, Pharaoh stubbornly refused Israel their freedom. 

But God, in the long tread of time, always wins. There is never really an argument between the light and the dark. Only a defeat. The dark may be tangible, but the light is unquenchable. 

Yes, Pharaoh had stated he had no knowledge of God, but he finally discovered this knowledge, like blazing light against his squinting gaze, acutely uncomfortable as it was. And he would bring God glory, though not under pleasant circumstances for him.

‘For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.’

Habakkuk 2:14

Humanity may have reached for the knowledge of good and evil, but we were created for the knowledge of the glory of God. We were created to know God. Personally. We were created to glorify God. 

Along with everything else in all creation. 

Journey Further

“For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness

and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves”.

Colossians 1:13

What does living in the Freedom Jesus purchased for you look like?

References, Notes and Credits

¹ John H. Walton, Genesis,  NIV Application Commentary Old Testament, Zondervan, 2001

²Psalms 13.1, 35:17, 80:4, 90:13

³Goldingay, John ‘Exodus and Leviticus For Everyone’, Westminster John Knox Press, 2010

All Biblical quotations are from the NIV Bible UK version (NIVUK) unless otherwise stated. Holy Bible, New International Version® Anglicized, NIV® Copyright © 1979, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

All photos are taken by myself (Liz Campbell) unless otherwise specified below.

All photographs of baby lambs and the bumblebee by Simeon Evenhuis

All photos of stars and galaxies are used with grateful thanks to the NASA,  STSCI, Hubble Heritage, ESA and AURA Team. Use of these images is in the public domain. Hubblesite.org