In Exodus 5, Moses is despairing.
He’s just been to Pharaoh, on God’s orders, and asked him to let the Israelites (Pharoah’s slaves) go. But what he’s done only seems to have worsened the situation. Now the Israelites are being forced to gather straw for their brick-making themselves. They are still expected to produce the same amount of bricks as before. Pharaoh feels they’re idle if they can have time to think about going into the wilderness together to worship their God.
Moses’ despair might seem relatable. After all, it must have taken a lot of courage for him to go to Pharoah in the first place. Now, not only has he failed the task he set out to do, but his people are in a worse place than they were before he returned to Egypt.
But God Himself had promised Moses that He would deliver His people out of Egypt. And He had warned Moses that Pharaoh would resist them.
Moses knew the fundamental parts of God’s plan but he didn’t know the details. He didn’t know exactly how God’s rescue would play out, but he knew it would.
In a similar way, we know certain anchor truths, but not the whole picture.
We know that if we trust in Jesus, we will have eternal salvation in Him. We know that we are headed home to heaven; that there is a happy (eternal) ending in store for us.
We’ve also been warned, by Jesus, that we will have strife and suffering in this world (John 16:33), but we know that He is greater than the troubles of this world.
What we don’t know, are the details of the journey we will take between here and heaven. None of us know the course our lives will take. All our plans, however well-laid, are subject to forces beyond ourselves.
Like Moses and the Israelites, our uncertainties are a time for us to learn to trust in God and have faith that He will carry us through. Like Moses, we sometimes need a reminder of the truths we know for sure; that we are loved by God, that He is faithful to His promises, and that our salvation is found in Christ alone.
We already know how this will end; God will be victorious, Jesus is our Saviour.
The journey is uncertain, but the ending is clear.