Believing God’s promise during their enslavement required the Israelites to exercise faith. Reconciling our afflictions with his goodness often requires us to rely on faith as well.
For The Israelites
Until God sent the first plague upon the Egyptians, the Israelites saw no sign that he would ever fulfill his promise of rescue. Their status as slaves remained unchanged, their dire living conditions persisted, and the Egyptians offered no hope of emancipation.
The Israelites were likely oblivious to God’s nation-building strategy because it unfolded in small increments over centuries. Personal miseries undoubtedly clouded their perception of his goodness and trustworthiness.
Nevertheless, the Israelites continued to trust in God’s promise.
Their trust may have wavered frequently, but it was strong enough to warrant passing the promise down to succeeding generations, as evidenced by Moses collecting Joseph’s bones.
The Israelites knew that God had blessed their ancestors and rescued their forefathers. Their very existence attested to this fact. Their recognition of God’s historical faithfulness justified their belief in his eventual rescue.
The Israelites would have dismissed God’s promise early in their enslavement if they had relied solely on logic or feelings to assess his trustworthiness.
The reasons for dismissing the promise included their misery, God’s persistent silence, and the self-protective benefits of avoiding false hope.
Conversely, the arguments for believing in the promise included their existence, their forefathers’ legacy, and their desire for freedom.
The Israelites considered both alternatives and chose to believe that God would honor his promise of deliverance. Their decision exemplified the definition of faith.
For Us
We have three choices in the midst of affliction.
We can infer from our distress that God must not exist. We can conclude that he is indifferent, irrelevant, powerless, or malevolent. Or we can believe that he is good and benevolent despite our adverse circumstances.
Believing that God is good is easy when our ordeals are brief, infrequent, and mild, and our sense of fairness is never violated. However, doing so when our suffering is severe, continuous, or unfair can be difficult.
When our feelings and circumstances raise doubts about God, trusting him requires us to exercise faith.
Amid affliction, exercising faith in God means basing our trust on the objective evidence of his existence and his past faithfulness rather than on a subjective perception of our current misery.
We infer God’s existence from the intricate beauty and sophisticated functionality of the cosmos and all living things. We see evidence of his past faithfulness in our lives, the lives of those around us, and in Biblical history.
This knowledge gives us confidence that he will help us through our present distress.
