This Too Shall Pass


Exodus 6:1-27
Today’s reading is a bit longer than usual so I have provided a link to the passage. Don’t skip the Bible reading. It’s the most important part!

http://www.esvbible.org/Exodus 6:1-27

The Children of Israel have now been forced into truly hard labor. Creating bricks while having to procure their own straw was an unbelievable burden on the entire nation of Israel. The Deliverer has arrived only to increase the pain of living under slavery to the Egyptians. If you were one of God’s people at the time you would not have seen the arrival of Moses as a blessing. God’s timing only sometimes coincides with our expectations, and his idea of the hardships we need to go through only sometimes coincides with our idea of how much we can take. At this point, God’s conversation with Moses brings clarity and power to His intentions.

God reintroduces Himself to Moses as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He assures Moses that the cries of the people have not fallen on deaf ears and He will rescue them. He also reiterates the fact that they will be freed from this slavery and will give them the Promised Land, even though it is not currently theirs to claim. These are bold promises and I’m sure that Moses and the people he needs to lead had doubts. Things didn’t look good in the moment. God explained the long view; all they could see was their current suffering.

I get that. When I’m suffering, the view beyond the end of my own nose is impossible to see. But just because I can’t see past the pain doesn’t mean the end to the suffering isn’t coming. It is always coming. As I age I’ve noticed the cliché “This too shall pass” lingers in my mind with much greater frequency. This saying dates back to the time of Solomon and was used liberally by Abraham Lincoln. It may seem trite, but it holds great truth. In the heart of the suffering lies the fact that these suffering will indeed pass. Nothing except God and His eternity will last forever – especially nothing here on earth.  The Children of Israel were under deep stress and sorrow. But God had His plan in motion and their troubles were going to pass away in a most dramatic fashion. In our passage for today God shares with Moses, and he with the people, that their situation was not permanent. God was going to bring about some massive change and they were going to be the recipients of great blessing. All they had to do was sit back and watch as God moved, just as their ancient fathers had done.

Luke 21:33
The heavens and earth shall pass away but my word shall not pass away.

You will struggle. We all struggle. There will be pain, but God sees and God knows. Remember, our threshold for suffering is much higher than we believe it is and God has all of it under control. All of it. He was able to handle the worst problem of all, that of our sin and its power to separate us from Him. Jesus bore that sin to the cross – and even that suffering passed. In His death and resurrection we are free from ever having to worry about what is coming or if we can stand up under our current suffering. This too shall pass and we will be caught up with Him forever.

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