We're Leaving Egypt.

How to stop romanticizing what God rescued you from, in the light of eternity

Has God ever delivered you out of something? And I mean delivered.

Like, He metaphorically parted the Red Sea in your life and got you up and out of somewhere?! Maybe it was a place you didn’t have any business being to begin with or maybe it was a place you thought you wanted to be, but it turns out He had something better in mind?

There are a few times in my life that God has “parted the Red Sea”— pulling me out of relationships that I would’ve never had the strength to exit or that one time He snatched me all the way out of the deceptive New Age beliefs I was anchoring my life to.

One thing our about God: He will make a way where there is no way to accomplish His purposes and protect His children.

Exhibit A

But what happens when we’re up and out of these situations, places, and spaces (by the grace of God), and start to miss them?

What happens when we start reflecting on that relationship and romanticizing the warm and lovey feelings they gave us while choosing to forget the way their presence drew us away from the Lord? What happens when we look back on those “pre-saved” days and miss the camaraderie we had with those friends that were quite literally going to be the death of us but GAHLEE, was it fun?

I was reading Numbers 11 this morning and what do you know? We’re not alone.

We aren’t first to look back too fondly and too romantically on the places and things that God has delivered us from and sadly, we probably won’t be the last.

God was quite literally leading the Nation of Israel with a cloud of His presence into the PROMISED LAND, overflowing with milk and honey and en route, they started wailing (Numbers 11:4) because they missed meat. Meat, y’all. MEAT.

They weren’t starving but they weren’t eating the food they were used to. God had been providing them what they needed— sustenance in the form of manna from heaven 6 out of 7 days a week (no manna on the Sabbath)— but they couldn’t appreciate the supernatural gift that manna was because they were missing what their life in Egypt used to offer:

“Oh that we had meat to eat! We remember the fish we ate in Egypt that cost nothing, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic. But now our strength is dried up, and there is nothing at all but this manna to look at.” Numbers 11:4-6

Translation: God, I know you are raining down bread from heaven for us and all but honestly? I miss the comfort I had back when I was still in bondage. Yes, I was a slave. Yes, I cried out for You to deliver me. But part of me still wants what I had back there.

It’s easy to roll our eyes or scoff at the Israelites ungratefulness, shortsightedness, and down right ridiculousness here but friend, heart check: we are them and they are us.

But as President Harry S. Truman said in 1953, the buck stops here. We are leaving Egypt and surrendering to the process of God getting the Egypt out of us.

And I use the words “surrendering to the process” because it’s going to be just that. The Israelites had established habits, routines, mindsets, and ways of living that were conducive to their previous situation (bondage) but being a free people? Being a people who feared and obeyed God? Being a people who trusted God and not their past? This all took time.

In this instance with Israelites in Numbers 11, God both burned in anger against them and gave them what they wanted:

And say to the people, ‘Consecrate yourselves for tomorrow, and you shall eat meat, for you have wept in the hearing of the Lord, saying, “Who will give us meat to eat? For it was better for us in Egypt.” Therefore the Lord will give you meat, and you shall eat. You shall not eat just one day, or two days, or five days, or ten days, or twenty days, but a whole month, until it comes out at your nostrils and becomes loathsome to you, because you have rejected the Lord who is among you and have wept before him, saying, “Why did we come out of Egypt?”’ (Numbers 11:18-20)

It’s very much giving, the Old Testament version of Romans 1:28 AKA “okay, I will give you over to what you think you want”. And on the very real level, I want NO PARTS of this treatment for the Lord. Who would?

When we shine the light of eternity on the “Egypts” in our lives and the remnants of these “Egypts” that have stayed with us long after we’ve been delivered that God is purifying out of us, the only truth to hold onto is this:

It was for this freedom that Christ set us free [completely liberating us]; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery [which you once removed]. Galations 5:1 AMP

So here’s the call: when the enemy tempts you to look back with longing, to crave the comfort of old patterns, old people, or old places God has already called us out of, remember this: freedom is worth the fight and healing is worth the process.

Forward is the only direction God is moving. Egypt had meat, yes— but it also had chains. God didn’t deliver us just to have us reminiscing about the meals we had while enslaved. He brought us out to bring us in— into wholeness, into purpose, into a Promised Land that is far greater than anything behind us.

Don’t forfeit your future for the fantasy of a past that was never meant to sustain you. Keep walking and stay free, because we are.

And now, of course, it’s your turn:

📝 It’s testimony time: what is an “Egypt” that has has delivered you from?

📝 What does it practically look like for you to surrender to God’s purification and healing process when fond memories of your “Egypt” pop up?

📝 How have you recognize when you're craving the “meat of Egypt” over the manna God is providing now?

Rooting for you always,

-Mel