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God Wants You to Know Him – Exodus 9:15, 16

We find wonderful insight and wisdom in the great historical event when God delivered His people, Israel, from bondage in Egypt. In the initial events God revealed His power and wisdom by inflicting Egypt and the Egyptian King Pharaoh with Ten Plagues. One of the great insights occurs when God reveals His intentions by informing Pharaoh that He could simply put forth His hand and remove him and his nation from the Earth. Instead, though, God uses ten plagues to reveal His power and His name to Pharaoh, His people, Israel, and to all people through the ages.

The purpose of the ten distinct plages was to demonstrate God’s power that they and us might know Him; that we might marvel at His faithfulness, love, knowledge, and power. 

When we are young and carefree; when we are enjoying the excitement and bloom of youth and joy coats our anticipation of the future, it is hard to think that life could be anything but grand and glorious. When our lives have not yet been touched by disappointment, difficulty, disease, death, and disillusionment, we are prone to think life is thrilling and great and happy. And then … without warning … as though you pass through an invisible membrane or barrier, some monstrous event explodes in your life – loss of a job, inflation threatens to destroy us, disease attacks our body, hurricanes, tornados, accidents ravage our lives, and then death knocks on our door. Life unravels. Life is not fun. Life is not joyful, Life is, in fact, hard. It is at those times when we need to know how to relate to God and how to find purpose in this monstrous thing that has entered into our life.

Take heart in your trials because they are the chosen instrument whereby God will work in your life to amend your attitude, configure your character, widen your wisdom, fine tune your focus, and forge your faith (James 1:2-12). God the Father wants you to know Him, to understand His limitless power and resources, and to be assured of His love, so He has arranged a display of His greatness on the platform of your trials. Charles Stanley wrote, “The trials in your life have been allowed to tarry because your heavenly Father wants you – and others – to see Him in action.”

Here is a power thought: when trouble calls on you, you call on God.

[Charles Stanley: “Jesus, Our Perfect Hope,” p. 134].


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