Day 11 – Issue 12

Be Still Know

Exodus 1:13 NLT

So the Egyptians worked the people of Israel without mercy.

Life is a very big question; how we live it, how we experience it, how we feel treated by its many ups and downs. Our moods can change in a moment from glee to anger, happiness to depression, and will influence how we show up in our world. The Israelites, having enjoyed the hospitality of Egypt when Joseph delivered the Egyptians from a severe famine, now faced a different challenge when a new pharaoh determined that this fast-growing, alien people were a threat to the very survival of Egypt.

Perhaps Israel had also lost sight of the God of Joseph, who had led him through remarkably dark and dangerous episodes before establishing him as the most powerful official in the kingdom. When we lose sight of God, we lose any sense of our purpose. The meaning of our lives becomes determined by what we do, and our daily circumstances.

Here in Egypt, Pharaoh turned the heat up on the Israelites by demanding output targets that were impossible. Yet, even as he ratcheted up the pressure, the Israelites continued to increase in numbers. Eventually Pharaoh resorted to infanticide in a vain attempt to quell the threat he foresaw from this immigrant population.

It’s often the case that when things are bleak, the last person we call upon is the Lord. The murdered American journalist James Foley, a practising Christian, spoke of how in 2011 he had found great comfort through prayer during a previous incarceration in Libya. He wrote:

If nothing else, prayer was the glue that enabled my freedom, an inner freedom first and later the miracle of being released during a war in which the regime had no real incentive to free us. It didn’t make sense, but faith did.

Yet, throughout scripture it’s when things are bleakest that we are to give the majority of our attention to God. The apparent absence of either help or comfort is not the basis for faith. It is rather the reality that God is all and in all that is to be the source of our quiet and persevering pursuit of the Divine One.

QUESTION: How difficult is it for you to find God when life gets tough?

PRAYER: Faithful Father, thank you that you never leave or forsake your children. 

Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright C 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc, Wheaton, Illinois 60189 USA. All rights reserved.