What many don’t fully understand was that God truly wanted to rescue them. He sympathized with their fear of the future. He really wanted to help them, but they kept getting in the way. He told them. “For thus the Lord GOD, the Holy One of Israel, has said, ‘In repentance and rest you will be saved, In quietness and trust is your strength.’ But you were not willing” (Isa. 30:15). The problem was not going to be solved with any kind of frantic regrouping. What the people needed to realize was that the problem was not going to be solved by them at all.
In the midst of rushing around and living a life filled with noise, when faced with troubles, we often rush around even faster and turn up the volume of our efforts, thinking that we can think and struggle our way out of it. However, we are not going to save the day, but the Lord will. Our job is to settle into “quietness and trust.” Our Lord said it very simply. “Be still and know that I am God” (Psa. 46:10). Don’t try to do it by yourself. Don’t look back at Egypt as if it has anything to say on the matter. Egypt is not going to handle this. You’re not going to handle this. I am! As far as this lure of Egypt, it all came down to a very important fact that the people of God had apparently forgotten. In fact, it’s something that a lot of us have also forgotten. “Therefore the Lord longs to be gracious to you, and therefore He waits on high to have compassion on you. For the LORD is a God of justice; How blessed are all those who long for Him” (Isa. 30:18). God longs to bless us. That means He yearns to help us. But, He will not force His blessings on us. It is when we long for Him—that’s when it will all turn around.
With incredible patience, God stands ready to make our lives better. “I have spread out My hands all day long to a rebellious people, who walk in the way which is not good, following their own thoughts” (Isa. 65:2). This doesn’t mean the tough times will never come along. But when they do show up, they’ll have to deal with the Creator.
We interfere with our own happiness. Our sins keep us weighed down. We could all look at our lives and say to certain things like, “Be gone!” Not just praying to God, but in turning away from the things that should have been ditched a long time ago. We are missing out. Our sins interfere. “Your sins have withheld good from you” (Jer. 5:25). If we refuse to go back to Egypt, that’s great. We keep going forward. We also need to make sure we didn’t take anything with us. Christianity is the one journey in which we want to lose our luggage. It makes it easier to hold onto what God longs to give us! “Lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us” (Heb. 12:1).