Bits for Sunday, January 18, 2009

Every year I try to switch up my approach to my daily devotions, just to keep things interesting. I have almost as much A.D.D. for topics as I do for hair color.

This year I’m reading a women’s friendship devotional, which one of my friends is also reading…and we email now and then to discuss what we’re learning. I’ve gotten some great ideas from that book – and you’ll probably hear me mention them now and then.

My other project is to study prayer as it is mentioned throughout Scripture. Right now I’m in Exodus, slowly walking through the plagues and Pharaoh’s persistent pleas for Moses to pray for him. I don’t know how Moses felt, but the guy is really beginning to get on my nerves. Even so, I’m learning a lot about what it means to willingly, earnestly pray for people who are just prayer-moochers.

Yesterday, though, I noticed something I’d never truly seen before. I’d read it before, but apparently glossed right over it. This verse came at the end of the locust plague…which followed the hail…which followed the boils…which followed the dead animals…which followed the flies…which followed the gnats…which followed the frogs…which followed the bloody river. If I’d been an Egyptian in that day, I would have been pretty mad at Pharaoh. Actually, I probably would have died of a heart attack during the frog plague, but assuming I survived the madness, I would have been personally paying the man a visit saying SEND THEM AWAY, YOU IDIOT!

But at the end of lo these many plagues, Pharaoh still stubbornly insisted that the Israelites stay in Egypt. The plagues hit, he panicked, he asked Moses to pray, he promised the people could go, Moses prayed, the plague subsided, and then Pharaoh changed his mind and made the Israelites stay. Such was the cycle.

The locusts swarmed into Egypt, destroyed what little bit of life remained from all the other plagues, Pharaoh pretended to be sorry, asked for relief, and Moses went out to pray for him. God heard Moses’ prayer, took away the plague…and then I read these words: “But the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart, and he would not let the Israelites go.” (Exodus 10:20)

This time, maybe Pharaoh really did soften up. Maybe he really did begin to get the point. Maybe he was a bit more repentant than he’d been before…a bit more repentant than even Moses could have imagined him capable of being.

But the timing wasn’t right. God was about to accomplish a pretty spectacular thing in the exodus of His people, but there were other events that needed to occur before that could happen. Perhaps God, Who could see into all the future, wanted to make sure the Passover could be instituted so its celebration could be part of the final hours of Jesus’ life hundreds of years into the future.

Whatever God’s reasoning, the time simply wasn’t right, so He hardened the heart of Pharaoh who once again took back his promise and keep the nation firmly stationed. I doubt Moses was privileged to God’s involvement in Pharaoh’s reaction, so from his perspective, it just appeared that Pharaoh was being his typical annoying self.

And from this, I was reminded that I don’t know, when I’m asked to pray for someone, what is happening in his or her heart at the Hand of God Himself. What I might attribute to stubbornness or annoyance might actually just be God causing a delay for purposes I don’t know. He isn’t required to confide in me when He does such a thing. He simply counts on me to be a faithful prayer warrior and leave the method of answering up to Him.