Pharaoh quickly summoned Moses and Aaron. “I have sinned against the Lord your God and against you,” he confessed. “Forgive my sin, just this once, and plead with the Lord your God to take away this death from me.” So Moses left Pharaoh’s court and pleaded with the Lord. The Lord responded by shifting the wind, and the strong west wind blew the locusts into the Red Sea. Not a single locust remained in all the land of Egypt. But the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart again, so he refused to let the people go. [Exodus 10.16-20]
Pharaoh was no different than many of us today.
We often get ourselves into bad situations and pray to God for deliverance. God provides deliverance and immediately our pride swells to exclude God as the source of the solution.
I think this is exactly what Pharaoh did. He was obviously astute enough to recognize his bad situation in the plague of locusts, but when a 'natural' occurrence yielded a strong west wind that blew the locusts into the Red Sea, Pharaoh quickly became proud in his estimation of the source of that strong west wind and, like was discussed in yesterday's post, was hardened against God once again.
May God help us to see where we do the exact same thing! So often we cry to God for help and then when help comes, we fail to recognize it was God but instead attribute it to something (anything) else other than God. In Pharaoh's case, perhaps he acknowledged a 'god of the west wind' instead of Yahweh. In our case, we may acknowledge science or our own efforts/knowledge.
Father, please forgive me for all of the proud moments in my life when I arrogantly acknowledged science, medicine, natural occurrences, or even worse, myself instead of You as my deliverer.
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