Are we present day Pharaohs?

-

 Dear Diary,


Okay...so here I am studying the book of Exodus, and I came to the realization that there are a lot of present-day Pharaohs. I find that rather unsettling, and we all need to do better - beginning with us Christians.


“Present-day Pharaohs” - yeah, you must be wondering what I meant by that. Well, present-day Pharaohs are those people who call on God when things get difficult and even go to the length of making promises to God. Crazy right? I am not finished yet. They make promises, and as soon as they begin to see a break in the cloud, they go back to their old ways and forget about the promises that were made. Is it a matter of forgetting, or is it that they do not care? I hear a lot of “YOLO” these days. 


Let me give you more context. In Exodus 8, frogs were all over the land of Egypt because Pharaoh hardened his heart and refused to let the people of Israel go. Frogs were here, there, and everywhere. Just try and picture that for a moment... The visualization alone creeps me out, let alone seeing them everywhere jumping here and there. So, Pharaoh called Moses and asked him to plead with the Lord to stop the plague and in turn, he would let the Israelites go (Exodus 8:8). Fast forward to Exodus 8:15, “But when Pharaoh saw that there was relief, he hardened his heart and would not listen to Moses and Aaron, just as the Lord had said.” Can you believe he went back on his word and did not let the Israelites go? Yup, he did just that -  he also did it more than once in the book of Exodus.


Now for the present-day Pharaohs - I have seen and heard of people who are sick and/or on their deathbeds, people who need relationship help, people desperately in need of financial help - in summary, people in the valley who would rather have a mountain-top experience. During the valley moments, they call on God. Some even go as far as to say they will give their lives to the Lord and change their ways forever. However, that is not always how it plays out. Like Pharaoh, as soon as they have recovered from the illness, they are back in the world living their “best lives”; as soon as they get that job, the church does not see them anymore; as soon as they get that relationship, they totally forget who they were giving their attention to previously.


This situation does not only relate to God, it also relates to the relationships that we have here on earth. When things happen, we vow that we will change, do better, and not let history repeat itself. However, as soon as second, third, fourth, or even fifth chances are given, some people tend to go right back to square one or even worse than they were before. It has to stop! We all need to stop playing with God; we need to stop playing with each other! Where do we get off thinking that it is okay to do that? Would you want someone to make you promises, and as soon as everything is good with them, they forget you? How would that make you feel? How do you think God feels? We ought to be grateful for grace because if we were living in the Old Testament days, only God knows what would have happened to us.


God is not our standby generator that we search for when we are out of “power” and need a backup. God should be our main source, and everything else our resource, because without God, we are nothing and can do nothing.


If you are stubborn and hard-headed, please get it together. Do not be like Pharaoh! You do not want your heart to be hardened any longer, and you most definitely do not want God to harden it for you. Psalm 68:6 says, “God makes a home for the lonely; He leads the prisoners into prosperity, Only the stubborn and rebellious dwell in a parched land.” Gosh, I don't even want to think about that “parched land.” Do you? Let us do better in every aspect of our lives, let us be the fruit of the Spirit, and hate the things that God hates. Let us repent and turn a new leaf because God is already waiting for us with arms wide open.


Love,

Christian Girl

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ode to 2017: The Year My Broken Places Built Me

-
Image
  Dear Diary, Five years ago (2017) was a rather traumatic year for me. That year I felt stress like no other, that year I thought I would have died, that year grief took hold of me, that year the people who I thought would have been ride or die left, that year brought me to my knees. 2017 should have been the year when all should have gone right but instead went wrong. I started working out because that Christmas weight was not going to work off itself. I began to work on myself. To what extent though? I was trying my best to fix what was there on the outside, the parts that could show. You know, the parts everyone could see while the inside was broken, as broken as could be - shattered into pieces, lonely, unloved, scared, terrified - craving something...something from above? 2017 should have been the rebirth of me, my career, my marriage, and my other relationships. 2017 should have been a year of success. 2017 should have been…but…it wasn’t what I had expected. 2017 wasn’t what...
Read more

2021 - Now What?

-
Image
  Dear Diary, Happy New Year ! Sorry for my tardiness! Wow, what a year 2020 was. I did not expect that at all, did you? That isn’t even a question - sorry for asking. The world was hit with a number of things last year one of them being the pandemic. It was unexpected and many people lost their loved ones - my condolences go out to them. Even though we had to go through all of that, I must say, some good actually came out of it. The pandemic gave birth to a fantastic bible study group I am a part of. We have members from different countries praying, fellowshipping, and studying the word of the Lord every week from Monday to Friday. Such a blessing! For each of us, the pandemic may have given birth to something good or something bad, it all depends on the angle from which you are looking at it. It’s now 2021 and we are still affected by the pandemic. I know many people were hoping that it would be gone by now. People postponed vacations, weddings, and a lot of other things in the h...
Read more

Is 2020 Still the Year of Restoration?

-
Image
  Dear Diary, It has been a while - it has been way too long if I might say. Any-who,  as you may know, there has been a lot going on since the start of the year from Kobe dying, pandemic, explosion, election and the list can go on and on. With all that’s happening I have to ask, is 2020 still the year of restoration? Year 2019 was a rollercoaster for me. There were days when I was way up and days when I was valley low. Towards the end of the year I was in the valleys of valley. Ugh, I just wanted the year to end🤦🏽‍♀️. So, I decided to take the necessary steps to make my situation better and I also professed that 2020 would be my year - don’t we all do that though? We all end the year with resolutions that we know we may not possibly live up to.  I had to start of the year right; therefore, I went to church on New Year’s Eve like I always do. The message of the night centered around 2020 being the year of restoration. Yes  , that’s my message! Were they listen...
Read more