Christian Living

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‘And in their hearts they turned back to Egypt saying “… as for this Moses who brought us out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him”’.

Acts 7:39-40

Welcome to the second part of the article ‘And in their hearts, they turned back to Egypt’.

We ended the first part with the deduction that whenever we cry to the Lord for grace to know Him and to do His will, we literally are crying to be delivered from the works of the flesh often represented as the opposites to the grace that we ask for.

But whenever we let our hearts consider or long for options we have walked away from – lying, dishonesty, revenge, unforgiveness, slander or gossip, bitterness, accepting or giving bribes, manipulation and control, pre-marital sex or adultery, envy and jealousy we, also, in our hearts also turn back to Egypt.

But what can cause us to yearn for things we cried to be delivered from? I do not know all the answers. But Israel’s reasons could also be ours. I believe that part of their struggle was because:

• They had the tendency to turn back in the face of trials and tribulations. Exodus 13:17 states ‘God did not lead them by way of the land of the Philistines, although that was near; for God said, “Lest perhaps the people change their minds when they see war, and return to Egypt”;

• They were not committed to God. Commitment to a relationship or cause helps us stay on course especially in adverse circumstance;

• They did not accept the reality of a change in lifestyle while in transit;

• They did not trust or have faith in God and His ability to sustain and bring them into the land he had promised them;

• They did not know or understand God’s ways and thus were unable to realise that God was likely to use their ‘transit time’ to:

- Teach them to live by faith
- Give them guidelines and instructions on how to conduct their lives
- Help them to develop a close and intimate relationship with Him
- Exchange their focus and attention from the temporal to the eternal
- Help them to learn to walk in humility
- Help them to learn to handle challenging times with a heart of gratitude and thanksgiving;
- Teach them the adequacy of God’s Word to deliver God’s victory;
- Show and let them experience God as the source of their total supply.

I have often wondered how Israel could have so easily turned away from God given the miracles He did to bring them out of Egypt and to sustain them in the wilderness. Sometimes, we need to put on the shoes of those who fell to know whether we would not do the same if we ever find ourselves in the same circumstance as they did when they fell. Have you ever had to eat the same kind of food at breakfast, lunch, supper everyday for six months? If you have had to, you would know that there often comes a tendency to replace what ought to be your thanksgiving at God’s provision with murmur, not because you are not grateful at having something to eat at all, but because you are simply fed up with having to eat the same thing over and over again.

I guess Israel must have felt this way at having to eat Manna everyday for forty years. And that is how we sometimes feel at God’s provision while in transit when we have to make do with a provision that is not as good as what we used to have or what we believe God for.

Turning back is easy. Staying on course can be so difficult; you sometimes wonder whether you would survive the process. Adverse conditions can make us state, just like Israel did, “… as for [the Lord] who brought us out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of Him”. But staying on course is God’s will for us and God has promised never to leave nor forsake us.

To be able to do this, we need to learn to navigate our hearts away from dwelling on how ‘better’ our circumstances could be if only we were not ‘stuck’ with God’s option. As long as the battle between flesh and spirit continues, we would sometimes find ourselves tempted to consider how easier and less stressful life might be if we were not committed to living it God’s way.

Whenever we feel like this, we need to ask God for the strength to hold on and the grace to navigate our hearts away from such thoughts. Because left unchecked, these thoughts might actually begin to look like options.

Please remember that Israel’s tendency to turn to Egypt, though in their hearts alone, cost them God’s personal presence on their journey; it brought acrimony in their relationship with God; they spent 40years on a journey that could, at its worst, have taken 2 years; they hindered an otherwise great and faithful leader from entering the promised land; it brought God’s judgement on the people and multitudes died without laying hold of God’s promise.

Any tendency to turn to ‘Egypt’, even though in our hearts alone, would not be without its own consequences.

I pray that God would daily create in us a clean heart; I pray that He would equip us to be faithful watchmen over our hearts and above all that He would help us to be diligent in keeping our hearts faithful to Him.

Shalom!

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