I had this awesome Nintendo game when I was little called "The Exodus." In it you could be Moses and work your way through various tasks to complete levels in the hopes of freeing the Israelites. You could even begin as Moses' mother or that maid who drew him out of the water and you had to protect him from the Egyptians who tried to take him from you! Intense! I can't say that I was all that into it, but it was a sweet game for a 9 year old.
Lately I've been reading that good ol' story of Moses and the redemption of God's chosen people. What amazed me this time through was the number of times that God provides for His people; not necessarily the grand finale act of redemption, but all the small steps leading up to that finale. From the burning bush to the Red Sea to the manna in the desert, it is incredible how many times God provides for His people. Truly God is faithful in His purpose and His promise to the chosen people of Israel.
However, what is even more amazing than God's provision is the Israelites' response! The chosen people of God have some serious issues with trust! After everything that has ocurred in Egypt - all the miracles, all the plagues - and the Israelites have been set free, they still don't trust God to provide. In the 10th chapter, when Moses has led the Israelites to the Red Sea he writes, "As Pharaoh approached, the Israelites looked up, and there were the Egyptians, marching after them. They were terrified and cried out to the LORD. They said to Moses, 'Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you brought us to the desert to die? What have you done to us by bringing us out of Egypt? Didn't we say to you in Egypt, 'Leave us alone; let us serve the Egyptians'? It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the desert!'" These words make me laugh; as if they were the last sarcastic words of a doomed group of people. And, in their eyes, they were doomed because they were only looking at what stood before them. They had forgotten God's promise to provide.
I can't bring myself to type the sappy story of how this relates to my life. But the moral goes like this: I'm an Israelite. It is pretty ridiculous sometimes how the Truths speak louder than the story itself.
I don't know if this story of the Exodus ever even happened. Frogs, flies, and locusts? Sounds pretty crazy. I don't know if God really killed all those first-borns or brought darkness over Egypt. I'm not sure what I believe. But none of that really had to happen because I know that it's right on. Somehow. It's True.
