Matthew 2:13-15 NASB
[13] Now when they had gone, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Get up! Take the Child and His mother and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you; for Herod is going to search for the Child to destroy Him.” [14] So Joseph got up and took the Child and His mother while it was still night, and left for Egypt. [15] He remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet:“ OUT OF EGYPT I CALLED MY SON .” …
These are Scriptures that I use to pray about in my own life. Let me share some truths that I have gleaned from these verses that I have used to pray into my own walk with the Lord, that might help you also. When the angel told Joseph to rise up and to take Mary and the child Jesus into Egypt, he told Joseph to remain there until he heard something different. The word “remain” doesn’t just carry the idea of staying in a place, but it has the meaning of “embracing” something. He didn’t tell Joseph to go and endure Egypt, but instead he was telling him to “be present” to this part of God’s will for him. Egypt cannot have been at the top of the list of the place where Joseph would want to take Mary and the baby to live for a season. Egypt was a pagan country, full of idolaters, but it was important for Jesus to spend some time as a refugee in Egypt for his destiny to be fulfilled, because Scripture decreed that Jesus would be called up out of Egypt. There is also a prophetic verse from Isaiah 19 that I want you to see that will help connect the dots in this story. (Is.19:1)The oracle concerning Egypt. Behold, the LORD is riding on a swift cloud and is about to come to Egypt; The idols of Egypt will tremble at His presence, And the heart of the Egyptians will melt within them.
It is likely that you are either in a situation, or will be in the future that would not necessarily be one of your choosing. Maybe it’s an uncomfortable job, or relationship, etc., but it is a situation that is difficult. How we steward the difficult places that God has placed us into the middle of, will determine the degree of favor, and influence that you will carry into the next season of your life. God puts us, or places us into situations for two reasons; that we might know Him in a new and deeper way, and that we might make Him known to those around us in transformative ways. The holy family’s presence in Egypt was meant to carry the presence of the Lord into a foreign and uncomfortable place, among the foreign and uncomfortable people, that the presence of the Lord they carried with them would melt the hearts of the idolaters around them. This is the same about each of us. When called into uncomfortable places, among uncomfortable people, we too are there to know Him in ways we’ve never known Him before, and the manifest Him to those around us in such a way that the anointing of his presence in my life would cause their hearts to melt, and fall in love with the Jesus who has clothed us with my humanity. There will come a time when God will call you up out of that environment into a new season, but if you can’t embrace His will for you in the Egypt’s of your life, then you will have missed a portion of your destiny, and you will not be fully prepared to experience all that He is, and all that He has for you in your next season.
A regular part of my prayer life is built on these Scriptures. I pray consistently for the Holy Spirit to help me fully embrace, and be fully present to the moment that I’m in that, I might be marked by Him in that moment, and mark all the others around me with Him,until He calls me out of that moment into the next.