“The people believed, and when they heard that the LORD had paid attention to them and that he had seen their misery, they knelt low and worshiped.” 4:31
Only God knows the rest of your story. In these first four chapters of Exodus, we see God putting into motion a plan that took 80 years to accomplish. The people of God were sojourning in Egypt after the famine that led Jacob to take his whole family there at the invitation of his son Joseph. Things were good for a while, but after some time, all of the original patriarchs died off and a new Pharaoh came along who didn’t know Joseph. Things often change in life and what we think we can count on today, can be turned upside down tomorrow. So it was with God’s people, and then God set into motion a plan that began with a little baby floating in a dangerous river.
The entire first two chapters is a story of God’s sovereignty in the life of Moses. He was rescued from being killed at birth, he was rescued from crocodiles in the river and he grew up as a Prince of Egypt for 40 years. Then he was rescued from that; not in the godliest way. He killed someone and then became a fugitive of the state and ran out into the wilderness, where somehow God rescued him again and let him find safety. Then the next two chapters have Moses spending another 40 years out in the wilderness keeping sheep and living off of the radar of Egypt and everyone else. Yet, even there God was working His plan and preparing Moses for an encounter and for a calling that would change his life and everyone else’s. Of course, Moses worries he is not up to the task and God gets frustrated with His lack of faith, but at the end of the day he goes back, and the bible says that God’s people believed and they worshipped because God had heard their 80 plus years of crying out to Him for deliverance.
To me, that is the most touching part of this story. God heard their prayers before they ever prayed and He was already working out the solution before they ever even knew they needed one. Before the foundation of the world, He had a plan, but even at the beginning of this story, you can see that in saving and preparing Moses, God was solving the problem before they cried out to Him. I think that is instructive for us in two ways. First, like Moses, God has a plan for each one of us and He is working in us and preparing us for something that we likely don’t know about yet. He is faithful to give us the right preparation at the right time, and even to work through our sins and mistakes (as well as our victories) to make sure we are ready to stand in the gap. Second, in this current worldwide crisis of COVID-19, God was already solving the problem before we ever knew that there was one. He has a plan and He is at work all around us for our good and His glory. He sees the beginning, the middle and the end all at the same time, and He is in control. He has the answer, and instead of worrying about what will happen we should be “kneeling down low and worshipping,” knowing that He has heard and this will likely turn out to be the greatest demonstration of His grace that we ever see in our lifetime.
