Amy and Where is Your Egypt?
Where is your Egypt?
Then all the congregation raised a loud cry, and the people wept that night. And all the Israelites complained against Moses and Aaron; the whole congregation said to them, "Would that we had died in the land of Egypt! Or would that we had died in this wilderness! Why is the Lord bringing us into this land to fall by the sword? Our wives and our little ones will become booty; would it not be better for us to go back to Egypt?" (Numbers 14: 1-4)
It's so human to look at the past with rose-colored glasses.
Even though the Israelites were slaves in Egypt, they remember the predictability of their lives there, their eating of meat, the familiarity of slavery which is all they had ever known. As soon as things get tough in the wilderness, they begin to doubt God, and they begin to doubt God's promises of freedom, liberation, redemption. They doubt their leaders Moses and Aaron. They complain. They grumble. They spread discontent among themselves - discontent based on fear and lack of trust in God.
Would it not be better for us to go back to Egypt?
When we remember the past with rose-colored glasses, the past becomes an obstacle to living into the new life God promises. Nothing will ever be as good as it was then, we think to ourselves, preferring to ignore the struggles we had in the past and focus only on the good stuff. We then become fearful and anxious, turn on our leaders and one another, and turn on God.
Where is your Egypt? When you become fearful and anxious about the present and more fearful and more anxious about the future, what do you look back on with rose-colored glasses? What do you need today to remember God's promises to you of new life, freedom, liberation, redemption? How can we pray for you today?
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