This post is part of my ongoing series of writing down my thoughts on the Bible passages I read each day. Some days I hope to have great insight that the Lord gives me, and many days, I will likely struggle through the text and not know what to write down based on what I read. My hope and prayer is that as I make this a habit, just as I did daily writing for so long, that I will improve on my ability to read and understand the passages I’m reading. Please keep in mind that many of these posts may be published late at night or with little time studying and simply be my first thoughts after reading. This is in no way a commentary that one should use to discern the Bible, but my own personal thoughts.
This passage felt to me like a little preview for us humans to see how God works. We see some of that in Job, where we see God allow Satan to mistreat Job in many ways. But in this passage, you see the end game before it even begins.
In the very first verses of chapter 7, God basically says, “go and do this and it’s not going to work.” Go and tell Pharoh to let my people go and he’s going to tell you no. He’s going to say no until I lay my hand upon them, and then I’m going to lead my people out.
We see that before it even begins, God knows that Pharoh is going to have a hardened heart…not only that, but God himself is going to harden his heart. It’s such a reminder to me that when things happen in life that are unexpected to me, and they feel like a huge burden I could never get over, God knew that was going to happen before time began, and he’s still with me in it.
God also knew that Pharoh was going to continue hardening his heart for 10 different plagues (but we’re not quite there in our reading). He knew that Israel would eventually be set free, but even that will have its challenges and people who question God (through Moses) in their freedom.
God is in control of every situation, and he has the ability to give us all things. Let us desire to serve him more so that our desires align with His will. No telling how God may use us then.