timing

Have you ever noticed how sometimes, when things look especially chaotic, there’s an underlying logic? That things weren’t just reactions to events, but part of a narrative?

The story of God’s people in Egypt ends in two short verses that are easy to read past, but serve to bring the whole saga into sharp focus for me. Exodus 12:40-41read, “Now the length of time the Israelite people lived in Egypt was 430 years. At the end of the 430 years, to the very day, all the Lord’s divisions left Egypt.”

I don't know the significance of 430 years, but the fact that it’s recorded in scripture tells me there is a deliberate purpose here. God knew when he brought his people to Egypt exactly when he would bring them out again. So it gets me to thinking about the whole series of events, and I begin to see purpose in all of it.

Settling in Egypt to survive the famine, in Goshen as the best herdsmen in the country, there was security. That all makes sense from a human standpoint.

But wouldn’t it be easy for the people, as they grew numerous and prosperous, to think they had done it themselves? If life in Egypt were easy, would they rely on God? Would they have ever called out to God if Pharaoh hadn’t oppressed them?

And then those plagues – how could any Israelite doubt that they had an almighty God who would fight for them? In the end, after all the hardship and the terrifying spectacle, God gives them a chance to take some of Egypt’s riches on their way out of town.

The outcome is this: A large, powerful, tough, wealthy people who have learned to look to God first and depend on him are on their way to the promised land. If God’s purpose was to equip them for the calling he has laid on them, it’s hard to think of a method that would have produced such excellent results.

This realization makes me confident that I can trust God. I don’t always understand the things that go on in my life, or the lives of people I love. But the history of God’s people helps me see that in my history too God has always worked good from it, and never has it deflected me from God’s purpose. Often, in fact, these things nudge me back onto the path God has put me on.

That’s why I love the Old Testament. God never changes – he’s exactly the same God as he was then. He loves me no less than he loved Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Moses, and he’s just as involved in my life. Sometimes in order to make better sense of my life it helps to see God at work in someone else’s, to remember the great things he has done in centuries past.