Dear Friends,
As we go through life, it is sometimes difficult to know when we have moved from one chapter to another. Sure, there are times like birth, school, marriage, deaths of loved ones, and even national events that can help us identify where we are in the arc of the story of our lives. When you become a follower of Jesus of Nazareth, the resurrected and living Savior of all, you enter a powerful, universe-shaking experience that literally changes all the chapters. Of course, the events of those chapters remain as they are. But the rule and reign of the risen, ascended, and soon-coming Lord Jesus Christ not merely reframes the earlier times in our lives but transforms them. The thing you thought destroyed you became, in fact, the very thing God used to draw you closer to Him, to save you, and to give you a future and a hope. The events of the chapter remain as they are—painful, a loss, or perhaps even a pleasant or good time in your life—but now, in the hands of your Father in heaven, those things are part of what God was doing in your life, even when you didn’t know it. So, in a sense, those times have to change their “chapter title.” Something like this was happening in Exodus. What was a story of pain became a chapter of providence and praise.
I pray this message, given at Reformed Theological Seminary for Faith for Living television ministry, will be used by God to direct you to the healing that our Lord Jesus has for you.
Yours faithfully,
Mike
PS: For those interested, see the footnote for a clarification about the identity of the pharaoh in the Exodus story.1
From Pain to Praise
What God Does With Our Pain
A Devotional
“And the child grew, and she brought him unto Pharaoh’s daughter, and he became her son. And she called his name Moses: and she said, Because I drew him out of the water.” (Exodus 2:10, KJV)
Dear friend, how would you title the chapters of your life? Some chapters bear names we would never choose—pain, loss, confusion, or betrayal. Yet when we come to know the risen Lord Jesus Christ, He does not erase the story; He redeems it. The events remain, but their meaning is transformed by His sovereign hand.
The Chapter of Pain
In the book of Exodus, a new king arose over Egypt who did not know Joseph. The children of Israel, once favored, became feared. Their lives were made bitter with hard bondage (Exodus 1:14). Pain was real—oppression, fear, and the cry of innocent blood. We know this chapter too. Every life carries wounds, disappointments, and questions that refuse easy answers. The Bible never minimizes pain. It tells us that we live in a fallen world where sin has fractured creation itself (Romans 8). Yet God is not absent. He hears the cry of His people. “I waited patiently for the LORD,” wrote the psalmist, “and he inclined unto me, and heard my cry” (Psalm 40:1, KJV).
The Chapter of Providence
Pain was not the end of the story. God was supernaturally at work. The Hebrew midwives feared God more than Pharaoh and preserved life. A baby boy, hidden among the reeds, was drawn from the waters at precisely the right moment—through a chain of events that only appear coincidental to the natural eye. An Egyptian princess, a watchful sister, a mother’s arms—these were the threads of divine providence weaving a greater tapestry. God superintends all things for His glory and the good of those who love Him. What we call chance, He calls ordered steps. Even in the darkest chapter, His hand is guiding, ruling, and overruling.
The Chapter of Promise and Praise
The child was named Moses—“drawn out of the water”—a perpetual reminder of the promise that God had kept and would keep. Every time his name was spoken, he remembered: God has a purpose and a plan. In Christ, that same promise is extended to you. The pain you carry does not have the final word. Surrendered to Jesus, who bore our sorrows and carried our griefs, pain becomes the very material out of which God writes praise. Fanny Crosby captured it beautifully: “This is my story, this is my song, praising my Savior all the day long.” The chapter that began in pain ends in praise when it is placed in the hands of the Redeemer.
Where will you take your pain today? Lay it at the foot of the cross. Receive the Savior who transforms victims into victors. To depend upon Christ is not to become weak; it is to be liberated with holy confidence and assurance. You are free to love, free to follow, free to become all He has called you to be. The grand narrative of your life is being rewritten by grace: Pain → Providence → Promise → Praise.
Going Deeper
What chapter title have you been giving to a difficult season? How might God be inviting you to see His providence and promise at work within it?
Recall an unexpected provision or “coincidence” in your life. How does recognizing it as God’s superintending care reshape your gratitude?
What new song of praise is the Lord putting in your mouth even now, in the midst of your current chapter?
A Prayer for Today
Gracious Father, thank You that no chapter of our lives is beyond Your redeeming power. You hear our cries, You order our steps, and You keep Your promises. Transform our pain into praise. Help us to trust You in the dark chapters, to see Your hand in the unfolding story, and to rest in the assurance that Jesus Christ has written the ending—and it is good. May we live today with dependent confidence, for Your glory and our joy. In the name of the One who draws us out of many waters, even Jesus our Lord. Amen.
“This is my story, this is my song, praising my Savior all the day long.”
— Fanny J. Crosby
Scripture quotations from the King James Version.
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In the audio, I refer to historians who identify the pharaoh of the Exodus as Ramses II. I want to clarify that my own position is different. The preponderance of the evidence (including careful calculations within critical points in Biblical revelation) points to 1446 BC as the year of the Exodus. That means that Thutmose III ruled and was, then, succeeded by—not his eldest son, Amenhotep, who “died inexplicably” before he could reign (he died in the Tenth Plague)—but by Amenhotep II who not only survived the Plague on the firstborn but lost the remarkable number of slaves, the Hebrews, which undoubtedly spurred on his Asiatic campaign to get more slaves. For a full scholarly treatment of the matter and to decide for yourself, consider: Douglas Petrovich, “Amenhotep II and the Historicity of the Exodus-Pharaoh,” TMSJ 17, no. 1: 81–110; https://tms.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/tmsj17f.pdf.
