Wednesday April 1, 2009

Scripture

Ex. 7: 8-24
8 The LORD said to Moses and Aaron, 9 "When Pharaoh says to you,
'Perform a miracle,' then say to Aaron, 'Take your staff and throw it
down before Pharaoh,' and it will become a snake."
10 So Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and did just as the LORD
commanded. Aaron threw his staff down in front of Pharaoh and his
officials, and it became a snake. 11 Pharaoh then summoned wise men
and sorcerers, and the Egyptian magicians also did the same things by
their secret arts: 12 Each one threw down his staff and it became a
snake. But Aaron's staff swallowed up their staffs. 13 Yet Pharaoh's
heart became hard and he would not listen to them, just as the LORD
had said.
The Plague of Blood
14 Then the LORD said to Moses, "Pharaoh's heart is unyielding; he
refuses to let the people go. 15 Go to Pharaoh in the morning as he
goes out to the water. Wait on the bank of the Nile to meet him, and
take in your hand the staff that was changed into a snake. 16 Then say
to him, 'The LORD, the God of the Hebrews, has sent me to say to you:
Let my people go, so that they may worship me in the desert. But until
now you have not listened. 17 This is what the LORD says: By this you
will know that I am the LORD : With the staff that is in my hand I
will strike the water of the Nile, and it will be changed into blood.
18 The fish in the Nile will die, and the river will stink; the
Egyptians will not be able to drink its water.' "
19 The LORD said to Moses, "Tell Aaron, 'Take your staff and stretch
out your hand over the waters of Egypt—over the streams and canals,
over the ponds and all the reservoirs'-and they will turn to blood.
Blood will be everywhere in Egypt, even in the wooden buckets and
stone jars."
20 Moses and Aaron did just as the LORD had commanded. He raised his
staff in the presence of Pharaoh and his officials and struck the
water of the Nile, and all the water was changed into blood. 21 The
fish in the Nile died, and the river smelled so bad that the Egyptians
could not drink its water. Blood was everywhere in Egypt.
22 But the Egyptian magicians did the same things by their secret
arts, and Pharaoh's heart became hard; he would not listen to Moses
and Aaron, just as the LORD had said. 23 Instead, he turned and went
into his palace, and did not take even this to heart. 24 And all the
Egyptians dug along the Nile to get drinking water, because they could
not drink the water of the river.

Reflection

Yesterday, I received an E-mail from someone very close to me. This
person wrote a couple of paragraphs saying how tough life was right
now, everything from struggling in school to losing several friends.
This person is in a very low point in his life, and I was supposed to
tell him everything was going to be ok. Wow, that’s a hard call. My
whole life people have told me everything would be alright in the end.
Some days would be tough and others would be great, but right now,
that’s not really what my friend wanted to hear I don’t think.
I responded to the E-mail immediately after reading it. I said that I
knew things were tough right now, but it will get better. Great, what
a cliché, I thought. I almost sent it, but then I figured that this
person didn’t e-mail me only to have me say what everyone else would
probably say. He wanted real answers and real opinions. I then thought
about how I would feel in this situation. I am a firm believer in the
statement “everything happens for a reason”, so I retyped the E-mail
and said just that. I told him that what he was going through really
did stink. I told him that I wish I could take some of the weight off
his shoulders for him because I know how hard life is for him right
now, but then I said he wouldn’t be in this situation if he couldn’t
handle it. Now, here’s the tricky part. This person is having a dry
spell with his Faith right now, so when it would have been easier and
less wordy to say, “God wouldn’t put you through something that He
didn’t think you could handle”, I tried to word my opinion so that it
was just a generic piece of advice.
After I got home, I began to read through the verses to decide to
which I wanted to respond for the Lenten Devotional. I quickly
realized after reading Exodus 7: 8-24 that this person, and I think we
all are at times, is like Moses when God tells him to go and tell
Pharaoh to let the Israelites go. Moses is afraid of the task ahead,
and God even tells him that he will fail several times before Pharaoh
lets the Israelites free. From the start Moses knows he will fail
before he succeeds, some odds. Moses asks God several times why God
has chosen him to do this job because Moses has a speech problem and
is not confident speaking to people much less high, powerful rulers. I
believe God chose Moses because God believed in Moses and knew he was
the perfect person for this task. Like Moses, my friend is facing some
difficult tasks in his life right now, but God would never abandon him
when the times are tough. God believes in my friend just like God
believed in Moses.
Though my friend may not see God’s work in his life right now, I can,
and I am a firm believer in retrospective Faith. I might have just
made that up, but I think so many times we look back over our lives
and see where God was at work even when we thought our worlds were
ending when we were in the moment. Right now, all I can do is continue
to pray for my friend and be a shoulder on which to cry. Hopefully one
day, my friend will see that this low point in his life was just the
unsuccessful attempts to free the Israelites, and when he finally is
able to free the people, he will see that these tough times were just
stepping stones to the great things that lay ahead of him in life.

Written by a PC Junior

Today, please pray for
Intermural Sports Teams