Meet Rob Heath

What a mess! Can you picture the scene in Egypt with the Nile literally bleeding and people having to dig along the bank to try to find some clean water? Dead fish are floating by, and it stinks! Can you imagine turning on the tap at home and seeing blood run out? And it was not just the Nile, it was every body of water in Egypt, as well as the water vessels of wood and stone. And why had this happened? All because of one man's hard heart towards God's instructions to let His people go to serve Him in the wilderness. One man's pride and ego was impacting the whole country of Egypt, and they were suffering because of Pharaoh's leadership.

What a contrast in leadership when we compare the style modeled by Pharaoh to the servant leadership modeled by Jesus. I don't know what Pharaoh is thinking in this passage, but he is not thinking about the well-being of the people who have been entrusted to him. He seems a lot more concerned with what others think about him, and he wants to appear to be in control. You could even surmise that the "magicians" he is going to for counsel are telling him what he wants to hear by performing some tricks to mimic the "water to blood" that God orchestrated.

Now, to ask the question, "What would Jesus do?," would be a fallacy, because He wouldn't have ever been in this situation. But Pharaoh could have been Christlike by elevating the needs of the people under his watch. He could have repented of his earlier bad decisions, and let the Israelites go into the wilderness to serve God. This decision would have benefited him, his family, the Egyptian people, and the Israelites.

We all like to think we are better than Pharaoh, and that, given the same circumstances, we would make different decisions. But are we? Would we? The decisions we make, depending on where we are in life, affect our family, our friends, our community, our company, and our witness for Christ. Lead well by correcting errant decisions and by following Christ!