Exodus 8

I have never had a guest post before. A friend of mine and fellow Elder at church wrote some great thoughts on the reading today from Exodus 8. His thoughts made me laugh but also think deeply about the Word of God. Here is what he had to say...

When I was a kid, one night I noticed a chirping sound.  I followed the chirping sound for about a half a mile until I found that the chirping seemed to be coming from stagnate little pond or maybe the trees behind it.  I couldn’t see what made the noise, but later, my friend told me that they were spring peepers.  I looked them up and spring peepers are small frogs 1” to 1.5”.  The males make a high pitched noise to attract mates.

Now if you lived thousands of years ago, in a place with a hot climate, like Egypt, you would need a house that has good ventilation.  However, with lots of ventilation, there would be no way to keep out the frogs.  Even the palace was full of frogs.  The frogs were probably looking for food and wanting to mate.  They were everywhere.  Frogs in the food, frogs in the beds.   While I don’t think Africa has spring peepers, the noise of all that croaking would have been loud and heard everywhere.  It was so bad the Pharaoh called for Moses and Aaron to get rid of the frogs. 

Personally, I haven’t had any bad experiences with frogs, but I can relate to how terrible gnats and flies can be.  It doesn’t take very many relentless gnats or flies buzzing around my head, getting in my eyes, ears, nose, mouth and hair, and biting everywhere they land, to make me feel miserable.  Even worse than the frogs, the gnats and then the flies would have crawled on and gotten in everything.

When Moses prayed to God and the current plague left, it must have been such a relief.  Then the next plague comes and it starts all over again.  Why wasn’t 1 or 2 or 3 plagues enough for Pharaoh to learn to do it God’s way.  Why is it that sometimes I have to learn the hard way.  And sometimes I don’t actually learn, and the hard thinks keep coming over and over again.  When I do things my way instead of yielding to God, I bring darkness, confusion, and misery, for myself and everyone around me.  But, as God’s children, saved by grace, with the life of Christ living in us, as we yield to the Spirit, putting to death our old desires, we can be the conduit, the channel, that Jesus uses to bring Light, Freedom and Life.