The Transition: Deliverance from Egypt

Egypt: Represents a place of bondage. A place where provision will often convert into enslavement. The place where the thing that is feeding you becomes the thing that is oppressing you.

Please allow me to explain further. A famine in Canaan is what drove the people of Israel into Egypt. They lacked food in a time where Egypt could provide food but later we see the transformation of the environment. God's people transitioned from welcomed guest in a strange land to slaves to a strange land. The land that once fed them, in their time of a famine, is the same land that held them captive for 400 years.

What have you gone into, in a time of need, and ended up bound to? Was it a job? Was it a school loan? Was it a title loan? Was it a relationship? Did you pawn off your possessions? Did you take out a personal loan? Did you take out a business loan? Was it a 2nd mortgage? What temporarily provided a need for you but left you bound? THAT is your Egypt.

If I am honest, I've experienced the bondage of Egypt throughout many points within my life. I remember working for a particular company that ended up laying me off and it was only after the layoff that it dawned on me that I'd accumulated more debt with the job than I ever did without the job. When I got the job, it was a help to me. When God released me from that job, it'd become my Egypt.

Likewise, my family and I were recently delivered from another "Egypt". Coming out of an eviction, we ended up living with relatives. When we first arrived, we had a plan and we had resources. By the time God delivered us from that place, our resources decreased tremendously, our debt increased, and we'd lost our only source of transportation. When we first arrived, we were "welcomed," but as the weeks passed by, we began to turn into "slaves". Before we knew it, most of our money was beginning to go to the welfare of someone Else's home instead of being saved up for our own. The same people who "welcomed" us, in our time of need, became the same people who oppressed us.

Now here is the silver-lining. Despite everything we endured in our "Egypt", the Lord taught us how to love in the face of opposition and offense. The oppression forced us into a posture of humility, seeking the Lord's face for guidance and deliverance... a posture, we had not assumed in weeks. The offense trained us to trust God to fight on our behalf. The rejection, humiliation, and accusations strengthened us in areas we were not aware that we were weak. After the "lesson", the Lord let us know that it was time for us to leave. He gave me a dream that indicated that for 19 days I would be living in an unfamiliar, temporary yet peaceful environment. In reality, we moved out exactly 19 days after that dream and although we have moved into a temporary/transitional place (A Wilderness) it has indeed been peaceful.

If you find that you are in an "Egypt", I encourage you to keep holding on. The Lord WILL deliver you, in due season. While waiting for your deliverance, take time to reassess the situation and discover the value (the lesson) hidden within the situation. After we were delivered, the Lord spoke to me and said, "Sometimes the thing that is hurting you is the thing that is blessing you." This truth resonated so deeply within me because I immediately understood just how much of a blessing the experience of "Egypt" really was to me and to my family. While it was not a pleasant experience, there are 2 remaining truths that cannot be altered by the pain of the experience and they are:

1) All things work together for the good of those who love God and are the called according to his purpose

2) The eviction was used as a mechanism to catapult my family into a position where we can inherit the promises of the Lord...something we could not inherit in "Egypt".

What was meant for evil, the Lord our God has literally caused it to work for our good. Before deliverance, before you can inherit the promised land, ask yourself this question...

WHAT HAVE I LEARNED?

We would save ourselves years of wandering, if we would simply learn the intended lesson. If you aren't sure, ask the Lord to reveal to you what it is that you should learn, so that you will not be forced to retake the course (repeat the situation). #Learnthelesson #Getdelivered #Inheritthepromise