No Wasted Pain
She looked into my eyes and said, “Don’t waste your pain.” My mind immediately returned to the time years prior when I’d led the memorial service for her young adult son whose life was taken in a car accident. She knew what she was talking about. She knew pain. But she also knew how God could use it to honor Him and help others—something this friend had done so very well. And as I heard her words, they comforted and encouraged me as I faced a serious cancer diagnosis. She was reminding me that God heard my cries and lament, and that He was with me in my pain and might use it to help others in a new way.
Moses also learned that God was with His people in their pain. “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt,” God said. “I have heard them crying out . . . and I am concerned about their suffering” (Exodus 3:7). The Israelites, like us at times, must have felt alone in their pain. But God assured them He had a plan to “rescue them” and that “the cry” of their hearts was heard (vv. 8-9). He would ultimately use their pain to grow their faith, defeat their enemies, and bring Him honor.
In Psalm 90, the only psalm attributed to Moses, he declared that even though our “best years are filled with pain” (v. 10 nlt), God’s “unfailing love” is with us “to the end of our lives” (v. 14 nlt). He lovingly won’t waste our pain—and neither should we.
By Tom Felten - Bread Ministries
Exodus 3:1-4, 7-10
Moses and the Burning Bush
3 Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. 2 There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up. 3 So Moses thought, “I will go over and see this strange sight—why the bush does not burn up.”
4 When the Lord saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush, “Moses! Moses!”
And Moses said, “Here I am.”
7 The Lord said, “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. 8 So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey—the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. 9 And now the cry of the Israelites has reached me, and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them. 10 So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.”
