Exodus 9: The Mystery of Transforming Places of Destruction into Opportunities for Refinement

Exodus 9: The Mystery of Transforming Places of Destruction into Opportunities for Refinement

"However, I know that you and your officials still do not fear the LORD God. ... As the LORD had said through Moses, Pharaoh was stubborn and would not let the Israelites go." (Exodus 9:30, 35, NIV)

Moses already knows. He knows that this warning will not reach Pharaoh, and that this entire process will once again end in rejection. Nevertheless, he follows God's command. In a situation where the outcome is obvious, Moses must deliver the message—facing the helplessness of it all. Perhaps it is merely a tedious and painful repetition, yet Moses silently walks this path. If the earlier Moses was swayed by results, the present Moses has learned a holy passivity, ceasing his own judgment to become God's instrument.

In this chapter, we once again confront the extremes of human nature through Pharaoh. Pharaoh's problem is not ignorance. Through the plagues, he has fully recognized God's power. However, his hardened heart refuses to move from intellectual acknowledgment to willful surrender. It is not that he does not know who God is, but rather that acknowledging God's existence means he must descend from the throne of lordship. Therefore, he attempts to trample on God's existence and rise above it. Pharaoh is not a monster but the archetype of all humanity—every descendant of Adam who seeks to be king without God.

Here a weighty question arises: "If I were to put myself in Pharaoh's place, how would God deal with me?" The critical difference between Pharaoh and us lies in the attitude with which we ask this question. To those who recognize their own stubbornness and are troubled by it, God gives not destruction but refinement as a gift. God leaves those who trample on His existence to their judgment, but even the stubborn child who cannot let go of God—He embraces them, even if it means collapsing the legs of self-will they stand upon. The suffering given to us is not meant to destroy us, but is God's heat meant to melt our hardened egos.

I believe this: Because no created being is excluded from God's palm, even outcomes that appear as destruction to our eyes can be processes of refinement within God's grand providence. What is God's purpose in refining us so persistently? It is to draw out unintentional love from within us. Moses' desperate desire to be blotted out from the book of life if it meant saving his people was not a forced religious duty, but a natural disposition that burst forth through refinement.

When a human being loves someone enough to stake their very existence on them, in that moment the human most closely resembles God. Today, through tedious repetition and painful refinement, God continues to awaken that natural love sleeping within us.