Passover Musings

There is a mountain that is my life. It twists and turns, goes up and down. Sometimes I reach a flat area and can see the path far ahead of me. Usually I can only see the next rock where my foot must go, each step God telling me to just trust Him.

 As I've been pondering the first Passover these last two weeks, I think the Israelites felt the same way.

 They had just watched God hurl down on Egypt many plagues of gnats, frogs, boils, and darkness. They must have been in awe of what God was doing to their enemies and maybe the deliverance they felt was coming. 

 But Pharaoh still wouldn't let them go. And there was this last terrible plague that they would not necessarily escape from. The eldest son of each house was going to die. Unless. Unless for four days each house brought a spotless male lamb into their house, then killed it, ate it, and painted its blood across their doorways. 

 Why would God kill innocent children? Why was their only hope an innocent lamb?

 They didn't know. They couldn't know. They only had their instructions. So they took the lambs into their homes. Precious, sweet lambs that they fed and cared for and the children carried in their arms. The same lamb their father slaughtered and the children were required to eat. 

 Those children could not see the good in the death of that lamb.

 I cannot see the good in many things in my life- hills that turn into mountains, bends that turn into long detours with no sunshine.

 I feel their pain. I feel the knife of God bringing people into my life who I love to just take them away from me. What good is there in that? What good is there in a slaughtered lamb that was brought into their house as a pet to be killed a few days later?

 But the oldest son did not die. Suddenly the slaughtering of the lamb was necessary and good. Their son, their brother, lived. They understood the reason for their previous pain.

 And unlike those children, unlike the Israelites, I can see God's overarching plan. I can see how the innocent lamb who died in the place of the oldest son was a picture of Jesus who would many years later die an innocent death for our sins. For my sins. 

 I do not know what God is doing with my pain and my life right now. I wonder how it can be good. But I am faithful that He is working for my good. I know that someday in heaven I will see everything as good and necessary.