When Freedom Hurts

What do you think of when you think of Christ setting you free?  I think I'm beginning to realize that I usually tend to think of Him setting me free from things I don't like.  I'm only beginning to realize that sometimes He also sets us free from things that we love and care about deeply, things that may even be good, but that hinder our growth.  Those are often the things that can have the strongest grips on us and keep us in bondage merely by the fact that we don't want to leave.  Yet if we don't leave, we may not experience all that Christ has in store for us.

Sometimes we may not even have to leave.  We may just have to reach the point where we are free enough to be willing to leave and trust God with the results.  Following Him into freedom may mean letting go of something we cherish or it might make it better.  What's important to the freedom process is that fear is replaced with faith.

I love the song "Painting Pictures of Egypt" by Sara Groves.  So often, we like the Israelites, paint pictures of Egypt and leave out what it lacks as God tries to bring us into a better place.  Freedom didn't come easily for the Israelites.  They had to leave all that was familiar to them for the unknown.  All they had was what God had told them.  All they needed was that and the faith to believe it.  But they struggled and clung to the ways they knew and many of them never got to enter the Promised Land because of it.  Freedom is difficult.  How often do we hear that?  How often are people truly set free from all that hinders them from what Christ has to offer, especially the things they want to cling to?  When we reach the point where it hurts to stay but we're scared to go, will we stay and continue to be hurt or will we trust Christ and follow Him to freedom?

Indeed...So Now, Go

"One day, after Moses had grown up, he went out to where his own people were and watched them at their hard labor. He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his own people. " (Exodus 2:11)


Moses had grown up in Pharoah's palace, removed from the suffering of his own people.  This tells us of the moment that Moses saw that suffering with his own eyes.  We know he was angered by what he saw because the next verse says that he killed the Egyptian.  This is the incident that led him to flee from Egypt into Midian where God would later speak to him.


Cue the burning bush.


"The Lord said, 'I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering.  So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey—the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites.  And now the cry of the Israelites has reached me, and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them.  So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.'" (Exodus 3:7-10)


This may be one of my favorite passages in the Bible.  The first thing that catches my intention is God's use of the word "indeed".  "I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt."  It gives me the feeling that Moses had passionately questioned God about whether he had any idea about what was happening to His people in Egypt.  Moses had seen it.  Had God?  Did He care?  Why wasn't He doing anything about it.  I think these questions burned in Moses' heart the whole time he had been in Midian.  They were probably questions all of the Israelites in Egypt had asked at some point in their lives.  And here's God's answer:  I have indeed seen.  I have indeed heard. AND I AM CONCERNED!


Now here's the kicker!  God tells Moses that He has come down to rescue the Israelites from Egypt and bring them to a good land.  And then He tells him, "Ok, now go, 'cause I'm sending you to go do all this."  With His help, of course.


Perhaps before Moses asked God if He saw, if he heard, if he cared, God was asking Moses the same questions when he allowed him to see the suffering of his people.  Perhaps when we learn of some injusticeand it burns in our hearts and we ask God those questions He is asking them of us.  Perhaps He is revealing His heart to us and preparing us for a time when He plans to do something about it through us.  But He needs us to go into it with a heart like His.


Have you ever had that feeling?  Do you have it now?  Are you open to joining with God in doing something about it in whatever way He leads you?