Who is my Pharaoh?

Too often I wait too long to write these words I get.  This time it's been a few days but I think it'll be alright.

Anyway, while reading 2 Kings: 17 the other day I got to thinking about some things.  I was wondering, "Who (or what) was my Pharaoh?"  Throughout the Old Testament, the Lord constantly reminds Israel that it the Lord is the one who brought them out of Egypt and delivered them from slavery.  One of numerous examples of this can be found in 2 Kings 17:7.  I think perhaps this is what (as well as the Holy Spirit) led me to begin pondering this.

I haven't always been "saved," "redeemed," "forgiven," or whatever you want to call it.  There was a time when I was enslaved to sin.  A time when I was in bondage and living under Pharaoh, king of Egypt.  And I have come to realize that in order to live a life of devotion to God I cannot forget that the Lord has delivered me from this.  How easily, like the nation of Israel, do I slip back into idolatry.  I forget that I have been delivered.  That I no longer have to live as a slave.  I am free.

So I am trying to recall what it was that I was delivered from.  There can be many vague or general answers, but what was it that really enslaved me.  That kept me trapped.  If I look at my life now, some of the idols that I think put chains around my heart are so cleverly disguised.  I find such a temporary hope in the "promise" of relationships.  I am so quick to think that someone could be "the one" that I put an exaggerated amount of heart energy into thinking about it and longing for it to be true.  I try to convince myself that it's healthy and with pure motives but when it comes down to it, it's an idol.

But it is time to put away my childish crushes.  It is time to act like a man and think like a man and not a man in the way that the world sees it.  I need to be a mature man of God.  I don't want to live my life with a heart on fast-forward.  Nor do I want to be someone who looks to the past with regret.  I want to live my life today.

I have ruined some great potential friendships by thinking only about their potential to be relationships.  While it is possible that a friendship can be the spark that ignites a relationship, I need to give that time.  I need to learn to get to know someone from their mouth, not from the words they type in their profile or the pictures they post.  Love is, first of all, patient.  With the technology we live with, it can be easy to think that we know all there is to know about someone before we even meet them.  Facebook can tell us everything we'd like to know, but then where is the place for conversation?  For dialogue between people?  I want to get to know someone by doing more than reading about him or her or looking and his or her pictures.

So I am trying to remember the Lord who brought me out of Egypt.  I am trying to remember the life before so that I can appreciate life now.  For I have been redeemed.  I have been saved.  And yes, I have been forgiven.  If I forget my enslavement I fall quickly into entitlement and that places me above others.  I am not above others, not anyone.  I once lived in chains, but now have free reign as a friend of the forever King.  How can I claim anything different?  My freedom does not permit me to enslave others.  It demands that I show others the Way that I have found.