There’s a segment on The Wally Show on 88.7 WAY-FM called Monday School. It’s basically where Wally or one of the others talks about what they learned at their respective church service. It’s like Sunday School, except on Monday. Get it? Ha. Ha.

Anyway, I’ve been mulling over the sermon by Ministry Resident Hunter Melton. I’m about to give my own version of Monday School, although it will be more of my takeaways than the actual sermon itself.

Essentially, the gist is that Moses finally agrees to what God has been calling him to– speaking to Pharaoh on  behalf of the children of Israel to let them go out of slavery and bondage into the Promised Land.

Moses imagines that his faithfulness will be rewarded with favor and success. The only hitch is that Pharaoh doesn’t buy into Moses’ plans and not only doesn’t let God’s people go but makes life harder for them.

We often have the idea that faithfulness and obedience always lead to victory and success. The unspoken notion is that God physically blesses the faith of His people through wealth and good health. It’s known as the prosperity gospel. It’s also not always how God works.

Moses found out the hard way that obedience can often lead to greater hardships. Sometimes, the goal of obedience isn’t as much victory as dependence. Moses learned how to lean on the Lord when his dreams of easy victory evaporated.

God is often more interested in forming our character than changing our circumstances. What looks like defeat might be a preparation for a greater victory down the road. What looks like silence and inactivity on God’s part is God working in secret in places where we can’t see.

The most precious promises of God are often learned in the dark and in the valleys. The  sweetest moments of intimacy with God don’t come in the victories but in the defeats and discouragements.

Sometimes, obedience may actually make our circumstances seem worse off than before, but the difference is that we take our eyes off the circumstances and put them on the God who is always greater than any of our obstacles.

Many in the Bible were faithful to God’s promise even though they never saw it fulfilled in their lifetimes. Their hope wasn’t in better circumstances but in the God who is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

May that be our hope in the days to come.