When Helping Made It Worse

Do you know what it feels like to do the right thing... and have everything get harder?

That is where this story begins.

God had heard his people crying. The people of Israel were slaves in Egypt, and their backs were tired and their hearts were tired, and they had been crying for a long, long time. So God called a man named Moses, speaking from a bush that burned and would not burn up, and said, "Go. Go and tell the king to let my people go."

Moses was afraid. But he went. He stood before the most powerful king in the whole world, and his brother Aaron stood beside him, and they said the words God had given them. "Let God's people go."

And it got worse.

The king was angry. "Who is this God?" he said. "I will not listen." And that very day he made the slaves work harder. Before, they were given straw to make their bricks. Now the king said, "Give them no straw. Let them go and find their own. And they must make just as many bricks as before."

So the people ran through the fields, scratching in the dirt for bits of old straw. They could not make enough. And when they could not, they were beaten.

They had hoped. They had heard that God remembered them. And now their hands bled and their backs ached more than ever.

They came to Moses with tears and with anger. "Look what you have done," they said. "You were supposed to help us. You made it worse."

Moses did not know what to say. So he turned to God and told him everything, the way you can with someone who loves you. "Why?" he asked. "Why did you send me? Ever since I came, things have only gotten worse. And you have not rescued anyone."

To Moses it looked like God had forgotten. But God was only beginning.

And God said something to Moses then, something so tender it was almost a whisper. He said, "I have heard them. I remember my promise. I will bring you out. I will rescue you. And I will take you to be my own people, and I will be your God."

I will take you to be my own.

The rescue had already started. It just did not look like rescue yet. Sometimes the very beginning of being saved feels like the hardest part of all.

The people could not see it. But God could. He could see all the way to the day he would lead them out, singing, into the open air.

And further than that. Further than they could ever dream.

Because one day Another would come and stand among tired and crying people. And the right thing he did would cost him everything, and for a while it would look like all hope was lost. But it was the rescue all along. And he would gather a whole family to himself, and say the very same words God whispered in the dark:

You are mine. I will be yours. And I am taking you home.

But that day was still far off. First, God turned toward Pharaoh's palace. He was about to knock on the king's door, and he would not stop knocking until every door in Egypt stood open.