By the way it's not going to work

What would you say if you went to the doctor because you were sick, he told you what to do to take of yourself and then said oh and by the way it's not going to work?  Or let's say you just came home with a new piece of furniture, you get the instructions out, start following the instructions and then get to the end and read "by the way it's not going to work"?  Would you be mad, think somebody must have lost their minds, throw your hands up and ask why bother if it's not going to work.
Well that is essentially what we find as we read the story of Moses in the Bible.  First Moses has started over with his new life in the dessert, has a wife, place to life, things are going ok for Moses.  Then he encounters a burning bush, no big deal except the fire is not consuming the bush and the  Moses hears the voice of God, coming out of the bush.  So that in and of itself, may have freaked me out a bit, but then God tells Moses to go back to Egypt to speak to Pharaoh and to tell Pharaoh to let God's people go.  Well Moses first tries to argue with God, telling God that he doesn't speak we'll, wouldn't know what to say etc.  after God tells Moses that his brother can go with him, Moses agrees.  God then tells him, go to Pharaoh perform a couple of miracles, so he knows you are sent by God and tell Pharaoh to let God's people go.  Then God tells Moses do all these things that I tell you to do and "oh by the way, it's not going to work".  Not only is Pharaoh not to let my people go, God says I'm going to harden his heart.
Wow, really God, you want me to go to the most powerful man in the known world, knowing full well that I have problems speaking as it is and then you are going to make sure that Pharaoh doesn't listen to me?
What would you have done?  Would it have been easier or harder if God had not told Moses the outcome a head of time?
Think about your own life, did you get married thinking it was going to be happy ever after, you did everything you knew to do, followed Proverbs 31 to a tee, only to have your husband leave you for another woman?  Did you pray and pray to have a child, went to the doctors, did everything you were told to do only still couldn't get pregnant?  Maybe you worked hard on your job, did you job as unto The Lord only to be fired after 25 years?
So what went wrong, why didn't things work out the way would expect them to?  Did we miss something?  Did we do something wrong?  I think that is the reason we have the story of Moses in the Bible, yes we can do everything that God tells us to do, and things still don't go according to plan, but this does not catch God off guard.  He knows the beginning from the end and he has a perfect plan.
Let's go back to Moses for you see eventually after a few plagues and the death of the first born sons of the Egyptians, Pharaoh does finally let the people go, so why did it have to be so hard?  I think part of the reasons it needed to be hard was to help build the faith of God's people.  You see as you read through the Bible, you will find reference after reference of the people of God being reminded to remember how God brought them out of Egypt.  If Pharaoh would have let the people go after the first time he was asked, there wouldn't be a whole lot to remember, also there may have been the tendency to say that Moses was the one who got Pharaoh to let them go.  But this way, there would be no doubt that is was God that did a miracle and the people were let go.  Now that's something to remember, something that faith can be built on.
So what about us, yes we may think that there is an easier way to do something, and why doesn't God just answer right a way, but maybe, just maybe God is doing something greater in your life, something you will be able to share with your kids and grandkids about how God did a miracle in your life.
I pray that this will cause you to praise God in the midst, while waiting for his full blessings to be poured out on you.