“Only when our greatest love is God, a love that we cannot lose even in death, can we face all things with peace.”
10So they took soot from a furnace and stood before Pharaoh. Moses tossed it into the air, and festering boils broke out on people and animals. 11The magicians could not stand before Moses because of the boils that were on them and on all the Egyptians. 12But the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart and he would not listen to Moses and Aaron, just as the Lord had said to Moses.(9:10-12)EXODUS 9-10
JOURNAL
I can’t read Exodus 9–10 without thinking about Moses as a man, not just a prophet. We talk about him like he was some fearless spiritual superhero, but I don’t think it could have felt like that in real time. It had to be heavy. It had to be terrifying at moments. Imagine being the one God uses to confront a ruler like Pharaoh, and then watching plague after plague fall on a nation. Not in theory, not in a story you already know the ending to, but in real life, with real consequences, and real suffering happening all around you.
Moses had to carry the burden of obedience even when obedience looked brutal. He wasn’t just delivering messages. He was standing in the middle of supernatural judgment, knowing that when God moved, things broke. Bodies broke. Livelihoods broke. Pride broke. Systems broke. It makes me wonder how many nights Moses lay awake staring into the dark, wrestling with what it meant to be chosen for something like that.
There is a part of me that wants God’s power, but I only want it if it feels clean and exciting and safe. Moses didn’t get that version. He got the kind of calling that costs you sleep, costs you certainty, and costs you the ability to pretend life is simple. When it says Pharaoh’s heart was hardened, I also think about what that must have felt like for Moses. Doing what God said, watching it get worse, and still having to go back in again. Again and again. That is not just faith, that is endurance.
And yet, when I read Matthew 18, I see the tension of God’s heart in a different way. God is not willing that any should perish. He is a Father who goes after the one. He is not indifferent to people. So I’m forced to accept that God can pursue the lost with perfect love, and still allow people to resist Him with full stubbornness. He does not force relationship. He invites it, calls for it, and makes a way for it, but He does not override the human heart like we are machines.
That is where this hits me personally. There are parts of me that still want control, still want to negotiate with God, still want Him to bless my plan instead of reshape my soul. But Moses’ story reminds me that obedience does not always feel heroic. Sometimes it feels like fear. Sometimes like confusion. Sometimes it's walking straight into conflict with no guarantee it will turn out how I want.
Job’s words echo in the background of all of it. God does not answer every question the way I wish He would. He does not explain Himself on my timeline. He does not ask my permission to be God. What He does offer is something deeper than explanation. He offers His presence. He offers His Spirit. He offers relationship.
And maybe that is what God is really teaching me. God isn’t calling me into performance or control. He is calling me into surrender, into trust, into the kind of faith that keeps walking forward even when it is costly. The peace I’m looking for is not found in understanding everything. It is found in knowing the One who does.
I can’t read Exodus 9–10 without thinking about Moses as a man, not just a prophet. We talk about him like he was some fearless spiritual superhero, but I don’t think it could have felt like that in real time. It had to be heavy. It had to be terrifying at moments. Imagine being the one God uses to confront a ruler like Pharaoh, and then watching plague after plague fall on a nation. Not in theory, not in a story you already know the ending to, but in real life, with real consequences, and real suffering happening all around you.
Moses had to carry the burden of obedience even when obedience looked brutal. He wasn’t just delivering messages. He was standing in the middle of supernatural judgment, knowing that when God moved, things broke. Bodies broke. Livelihoods broke. Pride broke. Systems broke. It makes me wonder how many nights Moses lay awake staring into the dark, wrestling with what it meant to be chosen for something like that.
There is a part of me that wants God’s power, but I only want it if it feels clean and exciting and safe. Moses didn’t get that version. He got the kind of calling that costs you sleep, costs you certainty, and costs you the ability to pretend life is simple. When it says Pharaoh’s heart was hardened, I also think about what that must have felt like for Moses. Doing what God said, watching it get worse, and still having to go back in again. Again and again. That is not just faith, that is endurance.
And yet, when I read Matthew 18, I see the tension of God’s heart in a different way. God is not willing that any should perish. He is a Father who goes after the one. He is not indifferent to people. So I’m forced to accept that God can pursue the lost with perfect love, and still allow people to resist Him with full stubbornness. He does not force relationship. He invites it, calls for it, and makes a way for it, but He does not override the human heart like we are machines.
That is where this hits me personally. There are parts of me that still want control, still want to negotiate with God, still want Him to bless my plan instead of reshape my soul. But Moses’ story reminds me that obedience does not always feel heroic. Sometimes it feels like fear. Sometimes like confusion. Sometimes it's walking straight into conflict with no guarantee it will turn out how I want.
Job’s words echo in the background of all of it. God does not answer every question the way I wish He would. He does not explain Himself on my timeline. He does not ask my permission to be God. What He does offer is something deeper than explanation. He offers His presence. He offers His Spirit. He offers relationship.
And maybe that is what God is really teaching me. God isn’t calling me into performance or control. He is calling me into surrender, into trust, into the kind of faith that keeps walking forward even when it is costly. The peace I’m looking for is not found in understanding everything. It is found in knowing the One who does.
JOB 40:6-14
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