In the beginning of Exodus, we start talking about Moses and the plagues. An amazing show of God's power that can easily be seen. But as I'm reading it, there's a couple of questions I noticed myself asking.

First, you see over and over that God was the one hardening Pharaoh's heart. Even when there was a slight moment where he might change his mind, it says that God is the one that hardened his heart and made him still not believe. So I start wondering, why is God doing this? Why is he intentionally making the struggle against Pharaoh so hard? I mean, God is all-powerful and even knows exactly what Pharaoh's going to say, so don't you think he could do something about his bad attitude? Well, I think part of it was for the Israelites. God wanted them to see his power, too. God wanted to show them that he still truly loved them and that they were his chosen people. Sure, Pharaoh and the Egyptians needed a little kick in the butt, but maybe the Israelites did too.

Secondly, this is something that kind of ties in with my life. And possibly even an older post. There are a few times where you see Pharaoh start to let the Egyptians go and change his mind. He lets Moses and Aaron pray and God takes the plague away. But then, right away, Pharaoh changes his mind because things are all back to normal again. And if you think about it, how often do we do that? How often do we fall on God when things aren't going so great, and call on him to help lift us up, but then as soon as things are good again, we forget about him. We think that the person that came into our lives, the event that happened, or what we were able to do for ourselves to pull us back up is what needs to be praised. But we don't get that God made all those things. So shouldn't he be praised?

I know I post fairly sporadically, and i'd be surprised if anyone even reads this, but I'm reading through the Bible in a year, and I'm hoping to get some more thoughts and posts down soon.