Episode 100 - More Frogs

I’m not really much of a reader. I read slowly, I get easily distracted and I generally find it hard work. Despite this I love stories and I even love books, I just don’t read them much. But there is one book that I read a little bit of every day. My Bible. I read it every day because I genuinely believe that God speaks to me through it and that He uses it to help me become a better me. Now I have read it before (so you don’t need to worry about giving me any spoilers), but unlike the other books on my shelf that I’ve read once and have ever since been collecting dust (or that are collecting dust as they still wait to be read for them for the first time), I keep coming back to my Bible. And the incredible thing is that no matter how many times I read it, God always shows me something new (or sometimes something I’d forgotten…).

Recently I’ve been reading about how God brought the people of Israel up out of slavery from Egypt. In the story Moses comes before Pharaoh (who is enslaving the Israelites) to speak on God’s behalf. Moses would tell Pharaoh that unless he let the Israelites go, God would do something bad to Egypt. Pharaoh would ignore Moses, something bad would happen, Pharaoh would plead with Moses to ask God to stop, God would stop and then the whole thing would start all over again. This happened ten times until Pharaoh finally gave up. It’s a story I’ve heard hundreds of times before since being small and even so, this week I noticed something in the story I’d never noticed before.

At one point in the story Moses tells Pharaoh that unless he lets the Israelites go, God will send a plague of frogs upon Egypt. Pharaoh refuses, and so a plague of frogs appears and there are frogs everywhere. The stories in the bible never fail to amaze me. Often it’s the Character of God and the choices He makes, sometimes however, it’s the people in the stories and the crazy things they do. Upon arrival of all the frogs, Pharaoh calls all of his magicians and wise men to come before him and respond to the crisis in the land. And respond they do. How? Why by summoning more frogs of course. MORE FROGS! Why would anyone think; “I know what this situation requires – more frogs!” I mean if I was Pharaoh, I’d be saying; “that’s just great guys, thanks so much for making the situation exactly twice as bad as it was before you started”. The strange thing is that he doesn’t seem to respond at all. Pharaoh’s not a nice guy. He’s the kind of guy who would have anyone who displeased him killed, along with their families, but it seems that this was actually what Pharaoh wanted them to do.

Well this just seems crazy to me. Or at least it did. Until I really thought about the question that wouldn’t seem to leave me alone; WHY!? Why on earth would anyone do that!? And then I realised that I had made a terrible assumption. I had assumed that Pharaoh, the most powerful, revered man in all of the land was trying to fix this problem that had hit this land which he was supposed to look after. He wasn’t. He had no interest in preserving his country, only his pride. He was used to ruling the roost, giving out the orders and doing what he pleased. Suddenly this guy came along, challenged his authority and told him what to do in his own palace! Pharaoh felt he needed to show his authority and power, to show that Moses (and indeed God) had no business telling him what to do, to show that whatever God could do, he could do to. Even if that what was causing havoc in the country he was supposed to be looking after. Pharaoh’s folly seems obvious to us but it was hidden from him. It would be easy to condemn Pharaoh but the truth is that I can’t say I haven’t wreaked havoc to myself and those around me trying to save my pride. I guess we all have a bit of Pharaoh in us, and we have something to learn from Pharaoh’s foolishness.