Making Bricks Without Straw on Good Friday

After such a great day at the conference, we took a small break from church and headed to a museum on the Sunday.  It was a wonderful way to just be together and have a little field trip into the big city.  We learned to never take a large contractor-type van and hope to find parking! 

Jonas, the 4 year old had to be the highlight of the day watching him literally bound back and forth to every single display.  His eyes could barely take it all in.  We kept waiting for him to fall apart and have a major meltdown, but just kept going like the Energizer bunny.  His favourite thing in the museum had to be the new washrooms.  The faucets not only had water coming out of them, but air as well to dry your hands afterwards!  Talk about COOL display!!!!  He wanted to go to the bathroom and wash his hands more than once......

We continue to read together in the mornings in Nehemiah as a family.  You would have thought that book had been written for our very situation that we'd been going through.  Every single day it spoke to us as a new issue came up.  Nehemiah had to deal with many different people and situations, too.  He and the Israelites were trying to rebuild the wall and without fail he came up against either discouragement or just plain attacks.  He never stopped the work or caved to those who tried to hurt him.  When it was all said and done, the wall was finished.  Nehemiah gathered everyone and they grabbed "both the men and women and all who could understand what they heard".  Then they took the Book of the Law and read from it from "early morning until midday.... and all the ears of the people were attentive to the Book of the Law".  What a great phrase, describing the people as being attentive..... for hours!  I try to tell my kids, "I'm not making you sit here for hours!  At least you can sit for a few minutes!!!"

As the Word gets read, the people answered, "'Amen, Amen'..... lifting up their hands.  And they bowed their heads and worshiped the Lord with their faces to the ground..... They read from the book, from the Law of God, clearly, and they gave the sense, so that the people understood the reading." (Ch.8, vs. 6-8).  A great series of verses explaining how the people were gathered together just as we try to gather our family together to hear God's Word, always trying to help them make sense of it when things are not easy to understand.

That was the role of the Levites, the priests, to help the people "understand the reading".  That has also been the job of my husband this past week, as priest of our home, to make sense of all that has gone on.  It isn't always just church-related things or even the Bible that we have to make sense of, it's all that life brings our way.

We've had many car issues, for example, the past couple weeks, that only yesterday we were able to get fixed.  Going with one vehicle is fine, but always makes you feel a little stranded if you are without one.  We've also had strange issues with our well water smelling a little funny with the new spring run-off.  I won't even look in the basement as there are still watery surprises down there, too.  So many things that we, as parents, have to help our kids understand how best to deal with them.

It's been one of those weeks where it is easy to look back and see how God has absolutely been faithful, for sure, undoubtedly, of course!  But then, I'm so much like an Israelite......a few things don't go my way and I get derailed or at least the temptation comes in to try to derail me....I read in my own personal reading this past week in Exodus about the time where the Israelites heard Moses and Aaron, saw all that they did and "believed".  They "heard that the Lord had visited the people of Israel and that he had seen their affliction, and they bowed their head and worshiped."  (Ex. 4:31)  But then, it doesn't say if it was a day or a few days, just "afterward", things didn't end up going so well for them.  Pharaoh kind of "freaked" and lost it, shall we say, on the Israelites after Moses and Aaron asked him to let them go.  They were required to make the same number of bricks without straw.  The Israelites, who had just heard that Moses was going to save them from the slavery of the Egyptians were a little confused and put out!  I kind of picture them running to Moses with a bit of a message, "The Lord look on you and judge, because you have made us stink in the sight of Pharaoh and his servants, and have put a sword in their hand to kill us." (5:21) In other words, "You said that we were going to be saved from the Egyptians!  Now it's gotten worse!"

Poor Moses.  He literally "turned to the Lord" after this cry from the Israelites and said, "O Lord, why have you done evil to this people?  Why did you ever send me?  For since I came to Pharaoh to speak in your name, he has done evil to this people, and you have not delivered your people at all." (5:22). What a great and honest series of questions.... Why, why?!  Isn't that what I ask, at least in my mind, "Why have you allowed this to happen?"  "Why me, why us?"  God did not deliver us from our church hardship in the way we thought He would.  He hasn't delivered us from our debt the way we hoped He would.

The Lord answered Moses right away, "Now you shall see what I will do to Pharaoh..." (6:1). Moses went back and "spoke thus to the people of Israel" (and this is the part I relate to the best.....) "but they did not listen to Moses, because of the their BROKEN SPIRIT and HARSH SLAVERY."

The Israelites didn't have all the plagues to look back on yet or the parting of the Red Sea.  They hadn't received the manna or the water from a rock yet.  They had a couple miracles from Moses' staff, but that was it.  So it's kind of easy to understand how they might have stopped believing him, especially when they were required to make bricks without straw.

Sadly, I do have sooooo many miracles to look back on, in my own life, plus all the miracles from the Bible!  I know how the story ends for those hopeless Israelites, yet sometimes I understand how they must have felt.  Our spirits feel broken sometimes.  We feel like we are under "harsh slavery".  We actually feel like we are supposed to make bricks without straw.  If Moses were to have come to me and say, "No really, I mean it!  God is really going to save you!  That whole bricks without straw thing was just a test!  Now he's going to come through.... trust me!"  I probably would have not listened either.

Our slavery looks a little different - it continues to be to the bank.  My husband sometimes feels like he is making bricks without straw, too.  As fast as he makes any money, it is gone.  Having been at this debt-reduction thing for awhile, I was quite sure God would honour our diligence and let us out from under the bondage in a decent amount of time.  We are still well within a reasonable timeline, so I shouldn't really be complaining, but it still isn't going as fast as I'd like.  Perhaps that's what makes me most like an Israelite, questioning God's ways at times.  They probably wanted their freedom to happen in a certain way and in their timeline.

But God said to Moses, "Now you shall see what I will do to Pharaoh....". I think freedom is still coming.  I think He still has a plan for us, for our church.  The Israelites couldn't do it on their own and still had to make bricks without straw for who knows how long.  But, it doesn't say they couldn't do it!  They just had to be a little more resourceful!  Exodus 5:12 says, "So the people were scattered throughout all the land of Egypt to gather stubble for straw."  That is what we continue to do, scattering around looking for stubble.... it's out there, we just have to look!  It could mean a different kind of work for my husband, or different ways to cut back on spending, or continuing to pray for contentment as our situation hasn't changed that much and doesn't have an end in sight.

It is Good Friday today.  I heard a great sermon on Jesus' final words to His friends on the day before He died.  He said it more than once, "Let not your hearts be troubled....Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you.  Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid."  (John 14:1, 27).  The implication from Jesus is clear - our hearts will feel trouble sometimes.  We must choose to believe He is in control.  His peace is freely offered to me.  I don't have to stay feeling like an unbelieving Israelite or like a questioning Moses.  I need not stay feeling troubled or afraid of all these situations I find myself in.  I know the end of the story!  This leaves me in a better place than those poor Israelites.  It is a good Friday.