In Want + Plenty by Meredith McDanielSample

Day Two

Spiritual Slavery

Scripture: Exodus 1:11–14; Psalm 121; 1 Peter 5:8

If we look back to the beginning of the Old Testament book of Exodus, we find hardworking Hebrew people under the rule of a powerful Egyptian pharaoh. The Israelites became slaves in Egypt after Joseph, a descendant of Abraham, died and a new pharaoh rose to power. This pharaoh felt threatened by the Israelites’ sheer numbers and feared they might revolt against him. So he placed taskmasters over them to oppress them with forced labor.

The Israelites grew accustomed to the expectations their Egyptian oppressors placed on them. They lost sight of God’s promise that one day they would return to the land of Canaan, their true homeland. They gave in to the mind-set that putting their heads down and working hard was the only logical way they could survive. 

Yet these were individual people with souls, created in the image of our Creator. They were a deeply loved people who had lost their identity in the machine of their culture. Sound familiar? 

We, too, lose sight of who we were created to be when we fail to remember we have a Creator. We settle for the lie that we will always be bound by brokenness and that our unhealthy habits are inevitable. The problem then shifts to blaming others, and maybe even God, for our current state. We refuse to consider that we might be settling for a cheaper version of what God had in mind when he designed us as his beloved sons and daughters.

You see, we have a covert enemy whispering lies into our heart that we are not enough and we are not doing enough. The enemy also craftily convinces us that our Creator is holding out on us. He knows what causes you personally to doubt or fear or hurt. He is fully aware of how to use your own history to fuel the lies and make them believable for you in your context. We believe the lie he first suggested in the garden: God must be withholding. We become slaves to his power over us.

What would it look like to cast aside the enemy’s enslavement and listen instead to what God thinks of you today? To realize that your identity, above all, is God’s beloved?

Lord, I am your beloved child. Help me to live out of that truth today. Amen.