Just As When You Had Straw
Hello friends and happy Thursday! I don’t know about you, but I love spending time in God’s word. I love the things that the Lord shows me when I sit in the stillness and read the Story of His Faithfulness. For the past few weeks I have been doing a study of Exodus, and this morning I was in Chapter 5. So, let’s study together! I’ll lay out the basic events of this chapter and then talk about my favorite verse from this little story, and how we can apply it to our lives.
Alright, so here’s a little backstory for you: God has been appearing to Moses and talking to him, performing different signs to show that He is the God He says He is. God told Moses to go and tell Pharaoh (the ruler of Egypt) to let all of the slave workers go because they are being oppressed. God also promised these people a land “flowing with milk and honey”, where they will no longer be burdened as slaves of the Egyptians. Doesn’t that sound like a great promise?! Now that we are all caught up, let’s get into chapter 5.
In this chapter, Moses goes to Pharaoh and tells him all about the signs that the Lord has performed and what He has told him. Moses tells Pharaoh to let the slaves go, but (not much of a surprise), he refuses. Then, Pharaoh accuses Moses and his friend Aaron of distracting the slaves and making them not be as efficient in their labor. To punish the slaves for not working hard enough, Pharaoh takes away all of the straw that they had acquired for making bricks and makes them go out into the fields to find brand new straw. To make matters worse, Pharaoh tells the slaves that they have to produce the same amount of bricks that they had been producing before their straw was taken away, and now they have the added labor of finding the straw themselves. That is a whole lot of work.
Now that we have talked about the basic events of Chapter 5, I want to talk about my favorite verse: verse 13. While the slaves are hard at work, here is what this verse says, “The slave drivers kept pressing them, saying, ‘Complete the work required of you each day, just as when you had straw’.” I love this verse. It might not look like much on the surface, as it is just about straw, but this verse is a huge encouragement for our daily lives.
Have you ever had the feeling of loosing something? Maybe it was a relationship or a job. Or maybe it’s clarity. You thought you were 100% sure of something, but now, you just don’t know. Maybe it feels like the thing that God has promised you keeps looking more and more distant and impossible, and the little glimpses you used to get aren’t there anymore. Or maybe you’ve simply lost the energy and the motivation to keep trying and hoping for something good to come out of your tough situation. That thing, whatever it is, that you’ve lost…that is your “straw”. And this verse tells you exactly what to do about it: “Complete the work required of you for each day, just as when you had straw.” Keep pressing on, keep running the race, just as if you never lost what you lost. Don’t give up. Complete the work required of you for each day, just as when you had a job. Just as when you knew for sure. Just as when you had a glimpse of the promise. Just as when it looked less impossible than it does now. Just as when you felt like it! Now, this doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t mourn a loss, because the Lord wants to comfort you in that. But I don’t believe that God wants that loss to stop you from doing what you’ve been doing - completing your required work for the day. I do believe that each and every day, God has work for us. It could be as simple as praying for someone and spending time in the Word, or as life-changing as a mission trip or preaching a sermon or sharing the Gospel. And notice that it says “…the work required of you for each day”. You know what that means? That means we are not to think about what God might possibly have us do tomorrow or next week. We will know when the day comes. Focus on today’s work, whatever that might be, however big or small it might seem. Having certain things makes completing our work easier. Having certainty of your purpose and your passion, being able to see clearly what God wants for us, having little glimpses of His promises so that they don’t look so impossible. And some days we have all of that. We know exactly what we want to do with our lives, we think we know our purpose, and it’s starting to look like this impossible promise might just come to fruition. And then the next day everything is unclear, something you weren’t expecting happened and now everything looks hard and impossible again. I know how that feels. But what are we called to do? Keep on completing our work for each day, just as when we had straw. Keep on doing the tasks that God places in front of you exactly like you would do them if things looked less impossible or more clear. It’s a hard thing to do, and some days you might not even feel like completing God’s work for you, but press on and run the race, just as when you did.
Lord, thank you that you choose to give us work for each day. Whatever that might be, however big or small it might seem, thank you for it. God, You also know that the clarity and the Joy and the certainty we experience on one day does not always carry over to the next. On those harder days, I ask that You help me to complete Your work for me just as when everything was clear, just as when Your promise looked possible to me. Just as when I had the energy and the excitement to run the race. I also pray that You would help me to only focus on one day’s work at a time, and not anything more. Thank you that You hold all of my days in your hands and I pray that I would be a good steward of all that You have given me. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.
