God’s plan for the Israelites included more than freedom. His plans for us likewise extend far beyond our comfort and convenience.
For The Israelites
The Israelites would have preferred to return home soon after Joseph died rather than be enslaved for four hundred years. However, God had a greater plan.
He wanted to transform a small, nomadic shepherd family into a nation of millions, endowed with skills, leadership, traditions, education, and wealth. (The Egyptians gave the impoverished Israelites gold, silver, and clothing upon their departure, in a misguided attempt to appease God. This outcome fulfilled a prophecy he made to Abraham centuries earlier.)
God wanted the Israelites to forge a collective identity that would endure throughout history, despite subsequent dispersion and persecution. He also wanted to be an intrinsic part of that identity.
God did not orchestrate the Israelites’ enslavement to achieve these goals. He never instigates evil.
The Egyptians enslaved the Israelites without his interference because free labor suited their economic self-interest, and they were powerful enough to make it happen.
God let this evil persist for centuries—only he knows why it had to endure that long—but he used it to produce his intended outcome.
Thus, God allowed that which he abhorred—the Israelite enslavement—to achieve that which he treasured—their emergence as a nation.
For Us
Amid affliction, we want God to pamper and protect us, but He has a higher purpose. He wants to perfect us.
God prompts us to seek him in times of distress. He wants us to realize anew that he is the sole source of true contentment.
He wants us and those in our orbit to understand at a deeper level that he is always good, that his ways are always superior to ours, and that his love is unfailing.
He wants us to willfully reorient our lives around his plans, priorities, and precepts, to our ultimate delight.
He wants us to learn to love him unconditionally, even when he disappoints us, just as he loves us when we disappoint him.
God never sponsors affliction to teach us these lessons. He can only do good things. He dislikes our suffering more than we do. He grieves when we feel hurt.
But God providentially uses the suffering we inevitably encounter in this fallen world to produce this goodness in and around us as we walk in harmony with him.
