Consider that the resentment, bitterness or just outright jealousy that may be aimed at you may have a purpose beyond what you can see.

Most of us know the story of Moses. A Hebrew boy, saved by Pharaoh’s daughter, raised in privilege as an Egyptian (because he was adopted by Pharaoh’s daughter). Confused by his lineage. Seemingly wracked with guilt because of his position to the point of murdering an Egyptian who was beating a fellow Hebrew. Then, seeking to be acknowledged as a hero and peacemaker, met with resentment and bitterness as he tried to step in between two fellow Israelites in conflict.

“After looking in all directions to make sure no one was watching, Moses killed the Egyptian and hid the body in the sand. The next day, when Moses went out to visit his people again, he saw two Hebrew men fighting. “Why are you beating up your friend?” Moses said to the one who had started the fight. The man replied, “Who appointed you to be our prince and judge? Are you going to kill me as you killed that Egyptian yesterday?” Exodus 2:12-14 (NLT)

So here was Moses, ‘hero’ in his own mind for stepping in and killing the abusive Egyptian, riding in on the white horse as peacemaker between Hebrew brothers and met with the response, ‘who made you judge, jury and executioner?’ I am guessing this was not the response to his “act of heroism” that he expected. God knew and God drew and God used.

I recently saw a t-shirt that I am committed to purchase that simply says, “I can do all things through scripture taken out of context.” A play on the verse in Philippians 4:13 “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” (NKJV). Philippians, a book written by a man (Apostle Paul) through whom the Holy Spirit breathed those words as he sat in a prison, legs shackled, likely sitting in his own excrement and suffering the flooding of sewage that would occur in that prison beneath the streets. Paul, deliverer of the Spirit-breathed scripture that is the book of Philippians, and widely considered the most joyful book of the New Testament.

So where am I going with my ramblings? The circumstances we are in or the position we are placed, very likely has a much greater purpose than we are seeing in the moment. The responses we are receiving may not be what we are expecting, but they are what God knew they would be. God values our faith over our bravado. He allows us to be in difficult situations because he desires relationship with us more than peace around us. He delivers peace within us that occurs when obedience resulting from circumstance invades us.

Matthew Henry’s Concise Commentary makes this statement of observation as it relates to Exodus 2:23-25. “Sometimes the Lord suffers the rod of the wicked to lie very long and very heavy on the lot of the righteous. At last they began to think of God under their troubles. It is a sign that the Lord is coming towards us with deliverance, when he inclines and enables us to cry to him for it.”

I often wondered why God allowed the Israelites to be in captivity in Egypt for 400 years. Equally, I have wondered why God allowed me to be imprisoned in the addiction of pornography for 35 years. It would seem that we chose to walk our own path, devoid of faith in God. God heard the cries of the Israelites that arose after hundreds of years, releasing the plan of freedom that would involve Moses fleeing Egypt for 40 years, the ‘freed’ Israelites wandering in the wilderness for 40 years. Only allowing those too young to have doubted the abilities of the God who had freed them to enter the promised land. For me, he allowed a 35 year imprisonment to the insidious, damaging and corrupting addiction to pornography to ravage my very soul, in order to use me for the purposes he has appointed in my life.

So why are you in the circumstances that you are in? I don’t know, but God does. He hears you. He’s waiting on your heart’s surrender. He’s preparing you for the marvelous purposes that are unique to your life. Today, walk joyfully and expectantly. Today, be a duck and let the water of those people or situations desiring to limit you simply run off your back. Those drops of resentment will join the chorus of a a broken ocean desiring to limit you, who God says is limitless. Swim above those waters desiring to drown.

Let’s get started. The day is not waiting.