For Every Wilderness, There Is a Rahab at the Gate!

Many of us when we are beset with seasons of challenge are totallly consumed with what we are going through. We focus on how it is impacting our lives and rarely consider that it is also impacting the lives of others. In our day-to-day struggle to “deal with” our challenges – we may see what is to us more failures than success. We know the times we are inwardly fainting, and feeling like a failure. I imagine Moses felt the same way after he had been to Pharoh nine times in obedience to God issuing devastating decrees, with each one coming to pass,  and still Pharoh would not let the children of Israel go to worship in the wilderness. While inside Moses probably struggled with feelings of humiliation, shame, and failure – (especially since the children of Israel, who were the object of his efforts were getting angrier and more beligerent against him ), but look at what was really happening:

³ (Now the LORD had caused the Egyptians to look favorably on the people of Israel. And Moses was considered a very great man in the land of Egypt, respected by Pharaoh’s officials and the Egyptian people alike.) Exodus 11:3 (NLT)

Whereas Moses kept returning to the Lord, frustrated that the latest devastation in Egypt had not worked, God was all the while working respect and favor for Moses with the people of Egypt! When the Lord told Moses to ”plunder Egypt” in verse 2, the people were willing and moreover in vs 9, the Lord told Moses:

⁹ God said to Moses, “Pharaoh’s not going to listen to a thing you say so that the signs of my presence and work are going to multiply in the land of Egypt.” Exodus 3:9(MSG)

If you will permit me a little “preacher’s license” – I believe that even as the plagues affected the lives of every Egyptian in negative ways (remember there was not one fly in the land of Goshen where the Israelites dwelt), those Egyptians were not only recognizing the power of the God of Moses, but they were recognizing that God walked with Moses! What the enemy meant for evil, in hardening Pharoh’s heart, God was using to defeat the ten gods of Egypt, and the power and influence of Pharoh over their lives! What in effect began to happen is that there were some Egyptian onlookers who, like Rahab who we meet later on in scripture, recognized Yahweh as the God of all Gods and the Lord of all Lords!

Fast forward this to your life. How many of you that today are facing a season of frequent and unusual challenges are aware that as you “walk it out” – you are affecting the  lives of all those looking at you.  How many of you who have received a bad report from the doctor, know that when the final report comes in – that doctor who looked at the “facts” will have to acknowledge that a miracle has occurred? How many of you have considered that somebody’s life is going to be changed because they as they are watching how you “go through” the tests and trials in your life, they will have to acknowledge that something supernatural is at work? Can you imagine the talk of the town after Job got healed, restored, and replenished?

Selah,

Maria