Jeremiah 42:10-19 (CSB)
10 ‘If you will indeed stay in this land, then I will rebuild and not demolish you, and I will plant and not uproot you, because I relent concerning the disaster that I have brought on you. 11 Don’t be afraid of the king of Babylon whom you now fear; don’t be afraid of him’—this is the Lord’s declaration—‘because I am with you to save you and rescue you from him. 12 I will grant you compassion, and he will have compassion on you and allow you to return to your own soil.’
13 “But if you say, ‘We will not stay in this land,’ in order to disobey the Lord your God, 14 and if you say, ‘No, instead we’ll go to the land of Egypt where we will not see war or hear the sound of the ram’s horn or hunger for food, and we’ll live there,’ 15 then hear the word of the Lord, remnant of Judah! This is what the Lord of Armies, the God of Israel, says: ‘If you are firmly resolved to go to Egypt and stay there for a while, 16 then the sword you fear will overtake you there in the land of Egypt, and the famine you are worried about will follow on your heels there to Egypt, and you will die there. 17 All who resolve to go to Egypt to stay there for a while will die by the sword, famine, and plague. They will have no survivor or fugitive from the disaster I will bring on them.’
Geographically, Egypt never ceases to be close. It wasn’t so very far from either Babylon or Judah. Going over to Egypt is not that long a journey.
Spiritually, it’s the same. It's so easy for us to slip back over into the world’s ways and methods. It's as easy as letting our thoughts creep over to Egypt, saying, "I just need to relax a bit," or "Why not just have a little fun?" We want to escape the sobriety and intensity of the Christian's walk.
Or, we can come to see it as a place of escape for us when trusting the Lord gets difficult. Verses 13-14 sound a lot like my secret thoughts, which suggest that Egypt is a place where we need not experience so many wars and challenges. There perhaps, we won't hear the sound of the trumpet, that ever-present call within our spirits to seek the Lord, to watch, to be on the alert, to intercede for others, to war and not be entangled in the affairs of this life. We get fooled into thinking that Egypt will provide a hiatus for us from pressing forward in the things of God.
We think we'll not "hunger for bread" there, that life will be more secure and predictable than this living by faith. We think that maybe a stable paycheck and an orderly schedule and a comfortable future might be found there in Egypt.
But the Lord says to us, "Don't do it!"
Yes, Lord, You're the One who takes care of us. We needn't be afraid of the threatening voices of this world. You are well able to provide all for us. Perhaps we have forgotten the grinding Egyptian slavery from which we have been delivered and see only the leeks, onions, and garlic that were actually the mocking scraps we were thrown in exchange for humiliating, purposeless slave labor. Galatians 5:1 says, ”Christ has liberated us to be free. Stand firm then and don't submit again to a yoke of slavery" (HCSB).
Lord, I continue to trust in you and refuse anxiety, fear, and disappointment.