I'm thinking today of the story in the Bible
where Moses meets God, essentially, in the burning
bush. After taking his shoes off because it's
holy ground, Moses averts his face. He looks
away because he's afraid to look at God. And
the Lord begins to speak. And he says, I have
indeed seen the misery of my people. Boy, that's
loaded, isn't it? But we have a lot of misery
now. God's people are suffering in many ways
all over the earth. And they're not the only
ones suffering. Basically, everyone's suffering.
There is suffering on the highway of holiness.
One kind of suffering or another. Well, God has
seen the misery of his people. And he says, so
I have come down to rescue them from the hand
of the Egyptians and to bring them out of that
land into a good and spacious land. He describes
how the land that he will send them into is a
land flowing with milk and honey. And he names
the people that currently live there at the end
of chapter 8. He says, and now, the cry of the
Israelites in chapter, I'm sorry, the end of
verse 8. And now, in verse 9, it says, and now
the cry of the Israelites has reached me, and
I have seen the way of... the Egyptians are oppressing
them. So now go, I'm sending you to Pharaoh to
bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt.
Does this sound like a God plan? Does this sound
like a plan that God has worked multiple times
in the history of his people? It is indeed. And
he sent Jesus to die on the cross, to win us
out of an oppressive world. And though we are
still here serving him as his ambassadors in
Christ, we know he will come again to save us
from the oppression that we are facing. He'll
turn our fortunes again. We're looking forward
to his coming.