My understanding of the story of the bible is not that of various stories of the old testament sharing with us the trials of the children of Israel, but of something else much, much deeper.
The story of the children of Israel, is just a continuing story of God’s story of bring His people to Him and to create the Kingdom of God.
Let me help you look at this story in a different light, that you may not of seen before, although you are actually right in the middle of the story. We,the children of God are in Egypt as I speak.
Let’s examine the scenario of the story, the children of israel were in a foreign land, nothing like the land that they were used to live in. It was a harsh area, a land that you had to work hard to just survive in. Living conditions were that of the nomads that had to make home wherever they could. The people were not of the friendliest kind either, they were weird with their foreign gods and practices. And we were away from our God in a different world and a different land!
Don’t you say this every time we come home from work,each day. “Boy,today was such a out of this world experience with the people and the environment that I was in, that I just can’t stand it”
Do you see the similarity of these statements from the children of Israel and today? The Israel not only was having issues of where and why they were there, they also were burdened by working for the pharaoh of the land. They oppressed,depressed, and just out of their realm. They were in bondage, sounds familiar doesn’t it? Monday to Friday is bondage. Clothing, shelter, money are everyday bondage’s that we have.
They were in a state of working for the pharaoh to just survive in this world, yet the conditions would soon worsen. It was when they spoke up to lift up their God, that this world rebelled to God’s people that we are not special in your God. But that we are just another part of this world who has a god that is no different than the rest of us. Pharaoh matched God in some of the curses that were laid out to him,until God was unmatched in the final one.
We need to see the real picture of this insight into God. God was still unseen but seen in His leading us out of Egypt with the Pillar of cloud. This journey was a long one in the bible, but it didn’t have to happen that way. You see Israel was starting to complain as soon as they left Egypt to what they were going to eat,where they were going to sleep,where are they going and are “are we there Yet!”( Yes, this is where it all started!)
Our perception of this world or life is distorted by this journey, because of the things that the children were wanting or asking Abraham or more to the point,God. All the questions were related to the old world(Egypt), and not related to new world(land,Christ).
This new paradigm or “life” that God was trying to portray to His people was not a physical land that was filled with everything that they would ever need, but of Jesus Christ that would come to this world and take them to Him, which in by it self would give them everything they would ever need,LIFE.
Our need to escape this Egypt,our world is the answer. The next question is HOW? I will tackle that one in the next blog, stay tuned.
The Eternal Purpose 