Crying over Straw

Sometimes, things get worse before they get better.

Whenever we do any big projects - redecorating, building, painting, etc. Things tend to get messier before all is finished. Unless someone knows the final product, they may think things are getting worse instead of better.

When God sent Joseph to Egypt, things didn't look so good. Joseph was a slave and then a prisoner. It certainly looked bleak, but God had a plan.

He blessed Joseph and brought the Hebrew people into the land of Goshen - a place of plenty. The Egyptians scorned farmers and left them alone, so they flourished and multiplied. God was working on His plan to make them a great nation.

The Egyptians became afraid of the Hebrew people and made them slaves. God allowed it to happen because He had a plan. God chose Moses. He lifted him to a place of luxury and then a place of humility. God trained Moses to be a leader.



When Moses appealed to Pharaoh to let the Hebrew people go, Pharaoh made things worse. He demanded that they build the same quota of bricks without being given straw. The people cried to Moses, and Moses cried to the LORD. He couldn't see how he was making things better for his people.

Things were getting worse!

"And Moses said,

'LORD, wherefore hast thou so evil entreated this people?

Why is it that thou hast sent me?

For since I came to Pharaoh to speak in thy name,

he hath done evil to this people;

neither hast thou delivered thy people at all."

(Exodus 5:22,23 KJV)

The LORD was patient with Moses. He reminded Moses that He was God, the self-existing One. He told Moses that He was keeping His promise to His people. He had a plan. He would bring them to a place that they would know, the Egyptians would know, the world would know that He is the Almighty God!

"God spake unto Moses, and said unto him, 'I am the LORD:

and I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, by the name of God Almighty, but by my name JEHOVAH was I not known to them. I have also established my covenant with them, to give them the land of Canaan, the land of their pilgrimage, wherein they were strangers. I have also heard the groaning of the children of Israel, whom the Egyptians keep in bondage; and I have remembered my covenant.

Wherefore say unto the children of Israel, I am the LORD, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will rid you out of their bondage, and I will redeem you with a stretched out arm, and with great judgments: and I will take you to me for a people, and I will be to you a God: and ye shall know that I am the LORD your God, which bringeth you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. I will bring you in unto the land, concerning the which I did swear to give it to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob; and I will give it you for an heritage: I am the LORD"

(Exodus 6:2-8 KJV)

The people were crying because they didn't have straw. They thought they would be happy if things were easier, but God had a bigger blessing in mind.

Are we crying over straw, some minor temporary difficulties,

when God is working in our lives to give us a bigger blessing?