Today as I prayed over my church, there was a phrase that burdened my heart, “We’re longing for Egypt.” And my prayers were filled with pleas that the Lord would show us mercy and turn our eyes to Him that we would not look back, long back or go back to where we have been, but that we would continue to move forward toward where He desires us to be. God has been doing many things within our Body. Obviously I don’t know them all, but can tell you of one thing that applies to this particular prayer and the thoughts following. God is doing a deep work right now: He’s healing deep wounds; He’s freeing us from deep sins; He’s opening up the deep, locked places of our souls. And it is ugly, and it is painful, and it is scary and at times it is dreadfully slow going...and the results of His finished work will be GLORIOUS!
Do you understand now why we have the “longing for Egypt” that we see in the Israelites as they journeyed to the promised land? But why would we want our modern day Egypts? Are they really worth returning to?
In Exodus, we see several descriptions of the environment and situations of the children of Israel while in Egypt.:
Exodus 1:8-13 Now there arose a new king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph. And he said to his people, "Behold, the people of Israel are too many and too mighty for us. Come, let us deal shrewdly with them, lest they multiply, and, if war breaks out, they join our enemies and fight against us and escape from the land." Therefore they set taskmasters over them to afflict them with heavy burdens. They built for Pharaoh...And the Egyptians...ruthlessly made the people of Israel work as slaves and made their lives bitter with hard service, in mortar and brick, and in all kinds of work in the field. In all their work they ruthlessly made them work as slaves.
Things were not good in Egypt. This description in Exodus is where their slavery BEGAN, it was followed by increasingly violent and cruel endeavors as Pharaoh failed in his attempts to subdue and crush God’s people. For example, he started killing the infants as they were being born, and after God began to command that he release the Israelites, Pharaoh began to place unreasonable labor demands on them (such as making bricks without providing the materials). Things were not good in Egypt; the people were enslaved, oppressed, cruelly treated and in despair.
And yet, when God gave them freedom, bringing them out of Egypt and into the desert on their way to the land and abundance He had promised them, there were many times along the way, in the center of various trials and hardships of the journey, where they lamented that they had left Egypt and longed to go back. So quickly they forgot.
Today as I considered this longing for Egypt, something else came to my mind:
Hebrews 11:24-26 By faith Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. He considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward.
I thought about Moses. As an infant who had escaped being murdered at his birth, Moses was taken in by Pharaoh’s daughter and raised as her own. He grew up in the palaces of Egypt, surrounded by all the good the Egypt could muster. He lived the privileged life of an honored Egyptian. Egypt for Moses was a place of freedom and abundance, treasure and pleasure. And he chose to walk away from it all.
If there was anyone with reason to long for Egypt, surely it was Moses. Moses knew the best that Egypt had to offer. There is just something profound about the fact that God used Moses to lead His people out.
Whether they be pleasures or pains, all in this world is fleeting, it is only Christ that is eternal. May we not long for our Egypts, but may we long for Christ.
Luke 9:62 Jesus said to him, "No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God."
Lord, be merciful to us.
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