Setbacks

In Exodus chapter 7, God tells Moses that he should ask Pharaoh to let God’s people go into the wilderness and worship Him. Then He says something strange:

But I will make Pharaoh’s heart stubborn so I can multiply my miraculous signs and wonders in the land of Egypt. Even then Pharaoh will refuse to listen to you. So I will bring down my fist on Egypt. Then I will rescue my forces—my people, the Israelites—from the land of Egypt with great acts of judgment.
— Exodus 7:3-4 (NLT)

I have always wondered about the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart, and I remember this story being told in Sunday School when I was a child. But it’s the next verse that I don’t remember being taught, though it provides critical context. God continues:

When I raise my powerful hand and bring out the Israelites, the Egyptians will know that I am the Lord.
— Exodus 7:5 (NLT)

God wasn’t primarily looking to educate the Israelites, but the Egyptians. This is the first time that I can think of (and I’m probably forgetting something from Genesis) when God expresses a desire to be known by His enemies. Egypt has been and will continue to be a foil in the story of Israel, a pagan nation on the southwestern border that at various times through the centuries makes peace or war with Israel and Judah.

Later, in chapter 9, God reiterates to Pharaoh:

…I will send more plagues on you and your officials and your people. Then you will know that there is no one like me in all the earth. By now I could have lifted my hand and struck you and your people with a plague to wipe you off the face of the earth. But I have spared you for a purpose—to show you my power and to spread my fame throughout the earth.
— Exodus 9:14-16 (NLT)

Before my first reading of the Bible, the notion that one of God’s primary purposes is His own glorification confused and unsettled me. I couldn’t square the idea of a God who desired humility from all of us with the His desire to glorify Himself. From my limited human viewpoint, it seemed like God was just arrogant and self-centered in a rather hypocritical way. It took reading and pondering the nature of His holiness, its profound cosmic purity, for me to understand that in the light of that holiness, the elevation of any other thing above Him is wrong in a cosmic sense. Holiness so pure and fiery simply cannot be subordinated to any other thing, least of all any thing created by that holiness. When we say God glorifies Himself, we are saying that God is the Most High and no other can be lifted into position even equal with Him. He maintains His innate sovereignty over all things He has created and elevates no other.

We see God making things more difficult for His people so that His power will be known by His enemies and that they will spread His name throughout the earth. I can imagine them telling travelers later, “don’t mess with those people to the northeast. Their God will tear you up.”

Thinking about this in light of my own situation, where a drug trial was supposed to be my next half a year of treatment, I wonder if maybe God is just making things harder for His own glorification. I have already experienced miraculous relief from various pains, some directly in response to prayerful intercession and some out of the blue. I have long thought that if God is planning to heal me completely, it would be very much in His nature to wait until all medical interventions had failed. It’s disappointing to have a course of treatment cut short, just as I’m sure it was disappointing to ask Pharaoh for permission to go and worship, only to be rebuffed nine times. But if God is going to glorify Himself through my trials, who am I to tell Him He’s doing it wrong?

As I greeted this morning’s sunrise, again on my front porch, I found it a little easier to have gratitude for the fact that I had woken up this morning and that God has given me another day. The disappointment in leaving the drug trial so soon and the dread of what comes next were both more distant emotions, barely felt as I let the sunshine warm my face. I just pray that I can continue to be stronger in gratitude and weaker in negativity, that I will be a faithful witness, a converted enemy, and that someday I will get to see the effects of God’s glorification through my life.