Love Gone Cold

Love Gone Cold

May the LORD look upon you and judge you! You have made us a stench to Pharaoh and his officials.

Exodus 5:21

IN WORD Only a few days before, God’s people were praising Him for His favor. Now they were cursing His handpicked deliverer. Instead of instant freedom, they got a heavier workload. So they complained. It’s alarming how quickly worshipful hearts can turn fickle. When love rides the waves of circumstances and hangs its hopes on the situation of the day, it can grow cold awfully fast. When we worship God only as long as He fuels our desires, we have a brief and shallow worship. Israel couldn’t see past the troubles of the day, so they quit trusting the God of eternity. Instead, they cursed His servant.

Human beings have always had fickle hearts. A few pages later in Exodus, a celebration at the edge of the Red Sea is followed by complaints about the drinking water. In the book of Judges, every deliverance is followed by idolatry and its tragic consequences. In Matthew 16, Peter’s declaration of Jesus as the Messiah quickly gives way to a blind indictment of God’s plan. And today, we repeat the cycle: worship one day, complaints the next. White-hot passion can quickly freeze.

That’s terribly shortsighted. Think about this: What if Pharaoh had let Israel go at Moses’ first request? There would have been no drama of deliverance, no sense of salvation history, no celebration of miraculous victory. The nation that was destined to be a priest between the world and its redeemer God would have understood little of its redeemer God. There would be no Passover, no Red Sea, no manna from heaven—just an easy deliverance. But that’s not how redeemers are revealed.

IN DEED Next time you find yourself in hardship, look for the big picture. God is revealing Himself in your personal history. Complaining about today’s headaches won’t help the process. By faith, see that He is doing something much larger, much more dramatic than today’s troubles. And be assured that regardless of what you see, His plan is always, always good.

There is a strange perversity in men concerning their trials in life, and only grace can cure it.

—WILLIAM PLUMER