Faith - Albeit Misdirected

Didn’t we tell you this would happen while we were still in Egypt? We said, ‘Leave us alone! Let us be slaves to the Egyptians. It’s better to be a slave in Egypt than a corpse in the wilderness!’” [Exodus 14.12]

On this date in the year 2020, I wrote the article Reason. I totally stand by what was said that day and would add the following statements.

It’s better to be a slave in Egypt than a corpse in the wilderness!’” sounds like a perfectly reasonable thing to say much akin to saying, "A bird in the hand is better than two in the bush." While both these mantras make perfectly good sense, there remains God, His will and promises to be considered. However, if God, His will and His promises are neglected in a person's life, that person's fate is limited to what their own devices can or cannot accomplish in dealing with their circumstances. And, here is where Israel found themselves.

Never mind that Israel had just witnessed unprecedented events in Egypt proving God was working on their behalf, they could not understand that being 'pinned up' against the Red Sea was simply one more opportunity for God's glory to be displayed. They indeed 'saw the glass half-empty' even though they had no historical reason to do so.

So, let's just cut to the chase, shall we?

Israel's God is our God. His will and His promises remain. What's more, those who would follow God today have Jesus Christ as further evidence of God's favor. For all that God has done, His only requirement is humble faithfulness. In fact, 'obedience to God' was fine-tuned in Jesus so that believers in Him might enjoy every blessing attached to faithfulness to God by simply identifying with Jesus in humble repentance and faith. Jesus was clear about God's will, to love and save the world, and repeatedly demonstrated what that looked like so we might do likewise. He even promised that all our needs would be met in so doing (Matthew 6.33). 

Like Israel of Moses' day, we today have more than enough history of God's intervention on our behalf to believe that if two birds in the bush are what God promised, then one bird in hand is simply a weight and distraction. If freedom in the Promised Land is what God promised, then slavery in Egypt is failure.

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us. [Hebrews 12.1]

"It’s better to be a slave in Egypt than a corpse in the wilderness!” and, "A bird in the hand is better than two in the bush" both exclude an important ingredient: faith - not just any faith however, but faith in God.

The irony of it all is that a human "sure thing" (a bird in the hand) requires just as much faith as a Divine "promised thing." Just ask any person who ever made a million dollars then lost it all. Just ask any parent who had a perfectly healthy and active child one day only to lose him the next day. Just ask anyone who ever built a lovely fine home to live in that was destroyed by wind, water, earthquake or fire. In fact, a human "sure thing" can claim no more "surety" than a Divine promise. Historically speaking, God's Diving promises have, to the contrary, repeatedly proven accurate while the world's sure things have over and again proven flawed. Everyone has faith, but not everyone has placed their faith in God.

For I say, through the grace given to me, to everyone who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, as God has dealt to each one a measure of faith. [Romans 12.3 NKJV]

When the Israelites said, "It’s better to be a slave in Egypt than a corpse in the wilderness!” their faith was in their slavery in Egypt. When we say, "A bird in the hand is better than two in the bush," our faith is in the bird in our hand.

Israel indeed had faith - albeit in Egypt instead of God. Their faith was misdirected. The Red Sea proved it to Israel just like our challenges prove what we believe in.

I hear people complain all the time, "I wish I had more faith..." But "faith" is not the problem at all. The problem is that the measure of faith they have been given by God has been placed in any and everything but God (including misplaced faith in themselves and human reasoning)!

"Faith" is not the problem. OBEDIENCE IS THE PROBLEM - obedience to God, His Son, His Word and all the promises they've given.

Question: If we really believed all God's promises instead of what the world reasons, would we need debt, insurance, medicine and technology?

Father, I can see that I have misused the faith You gave me. Please help me to purposefully and methodically redirect my faith away from the world and unto You. So be it.