“Lights will guide you home and ignite your bones…”

I was reading through the first couple of chapters of Exodus, where the Israelites are becoming more and more oppressed by pharaoh and the Egyptians. What were they doing? It seems they were making brinks and building cities. I’m not sure I follow Pharaoh’s reasoning in scripture, but he gets afraid at the copious numbers of Israelites in the land, that they might side with the enemies of Egypt in some future war, and decides to work them hard, get rid of the male children and put slave masters over them. So the people get oppressed and cry out to God. So God snaps his fingers and smotes the Egyptians right? Not quite. During this time a baby gets born, and through a set of unforeseen circumstances becomes Pharaoh’s daughter’s adopted child. Moses lives the Egyptian equivalent of the high life and pretty much is either ignorant to or indifferent to the plight of his people. At some point in his adult hood he gets caught killing an Egyptian who was beating an Israelite and flees the country. He marries, has children, and then God appears to Moses in a burning bush, 40 years after his escape from Egypt. After leaving Egypt, the people wandered in the wilderness for 40 more years and then Moses dies at the ripe old age of 120 just before the people cross into the Promised Land. (Just a side note, during the wilderness wanderings they had to, on average, bury eighty-two people a day- thanks Tony)

So it was early and I had to think about it but that makes Moses about 80 years old when he goes down to Egypt to set free the Israelites. And unless I missed something, the oppression that the people were crying out to God about had been going on some time before that. So for at least 80 years, but probably more, the people languished in despair.

“Then the LORD told him, "You can be sure I have seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard their cries for deliverance from their harsh slave drivers. Yes, I am aware of their suffering. 8 So I have come to rescue them from the Egyptians and lead them out of Egypt into their own good and spacious land. It is a land flowing with milk and honey-the land where the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites live. 9 The cries of the people of Israel have reached me, and I have seen how the Egyptians have oppressed them with heavy tasks. 10 Now go, for I am sending you to Pharaoh. You will lead my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt."” Exodus 3:7-10

I imagine my self in the same situation. I’ve forgotten about my people, their needs their struggles or at least ignored them long enough for it them to become nothing more than a passing thought. I have a wife, I am on good terms with the in-laws, and even have some kids and sheep and land. I’m comfortable. Then God comes along and says, “I have heard their cries for deliverance”. What? Now you’ve heard their cries? Now, when I’m comfortable? I’m eighty, I’m supposed to be traveling around in an RV and collecting souvenirs from around the Sinai. Seriously God, go pick on someone else.

I’ve always heard the story of Moses conversation with God taught as, Moses was reluctant because he really wasn’t skilled or he was shy or humble. I think he was lazy. God please, please, please send any one else. And then he gave all these excuses why someone else should do it. Finally God gets mad and sends Aaron the Levite (wait how does Moses know who his Levite brother is)

But why does God wait eighty-plus years to bring his people out of captivity…
This is the question I kept coming back to in my head.

But first skip ahead a little bit. (Past the part about God going to kill Moses cause his son wasn’t circumcised, weird stuff but I have a thought about it for my next post)

Moses talks to pharaoh and pharaoh decides to make it harder on the Israelites not easier- didn’t we all see that one coming. And does Moses get thanked for trying to help them. Yeah right, they get their ropes in a knot. Then Moses cries out to God and God says that he is still going to help them (This is a short paraphrase of a chapter of Dialog)
Then Moses goes to the people and again tells them what God said

Chapter 6, Verse 9
Moses spoke thus to the people of Israel, but they did not listen to Moses, because of their broken spirit and harsh slavery.

And when I think back to question about why does God wait so long, it seems like at this point he has waited too long. The people have been broken by their slavery. Not just in bondage. Bondage implies oppression, and oppression often brings hope for the future, hope for release and hope for change. But the Israelites were broken.

I have all these biblical themes running through my head
Stories of Exile and Oppression by Babylon, Greece, and Rome
The waiting and the longing for a deliverer in times of trouble
The hope of a coming Messiah to establish Israel for good

And I even think, yes that gives me hope, God is going to come through; he’s done it before and he’ll do it again. And so I hold on to that last scrap of hope. But I think even that misses the mark.

I think God waits till people are broken to fix them.

It seems wrong, like God is almost a bad guy, and I guess I will have to untangle all my thoughts about it over the next couple of days, but I couldn’t escape my own thoughts.

God waits till people are broken to fix them.

God waits till I am broken to fix me.

Kenya

I remember my first night at the hospital. I had taken all the classes, learned the medicine and the only thing that I had left to do was actually put what I had learned into practice. I was 20 years old and for about the first hour of my shift I was pretty dumbfounded. I walked around looking, but not saying much. Blood, contusions, brokenbones, coughing, crying, moans. All of these thing were going on and I was slightly overwelmed. I rember the first thing that I did, I cleaned up the floor under a lady who had been shot. It wasnt the glamorus thing it was kinda gross, here i was with all my Emegency Medical Training and I was cleaning the floor. But it got me moving. It got me doing something and by the end of the night I had worked with all sorts of patients, drug addicts, criminals from the jail, done CPR 3 times and a bunch of other things.

And right now Im feeling that sorta dumfounded feeling again. As alot of you know I have been looking for work for the last few months. I applied for a job at ELI that seems like a great fit for me and Im eager to start, where I would, among other things, be a sort of short term missions team pastor helping with training and tending to thier needs spititually to prepare them for going to Africa and to encorage them and help them through the spiritual issues they might have at their return. I have already interviewed with the staff but have yet to interview with Don since he is in Africa.

The issue is that over night Kenya has erupted in violence. Churches have burned and the media is using terms like "ethnic cleansing". The last report I heard on Don is that they are trying to get him and his family out of the country, but that their centers in Kenya are becoming refugee camps for people who are excaping the violence, some with only the clothes on their back. If you are reading this please pray for peace in Kenya. Im not sure what else they might need from us. I have emailed the US office of ELI to see if they have physical needs. Im sure they will need money to rebuild that which was lost and to buy food since in times of unrest, the cost of everything goes up.

Here's ELI's Blog to read about what they are facing incountry.
http://empoweringlives.blogspot.com/

Here's another missionary's blog in kenya that highlights some detailed descriptions of what is actually happening in Kenya since the government closed down the news in or out of the country. http://www.dlipparelli.blogspot.com/