God’s patterns and practice-runs.
Such are The Bible’s functions.
Puzzle pieces there portrayed,
Of what’s to come, yet delayed.
When to His puzzle pieces we perceive a pattern,
Imagine His Spirit standing behind the lectern,
Some important insight to you to impart,
Or life principle to write upon your heart.
One puzzle piece that to all believers should serve,
As key insight and life principle to preserve,
Is the ‘Goshen Effect’ from the Exodus story.
In this rhyming journey, this effect we will study.
Perhaps you may know the Exodus story very well,
How God delivered His people from Egypt’s ‘slavery cell’.
With God’s exit plans, Pharaoh did not concur,
So He sent 10 plagues, all Egypt to clobber! 1
But Pharaoh’s magicians had tricks of their own.
So to the first three plagues, they showed theirs, homegrown.
To ‘one-up’ these magicians, and tamp down Pharaoh’s arrogance,
‘Between your people and Mine’, God said, ‘I’ll make a difference!’
Thus, through the next seven plagues, Goshen was sheltered,
As all across the land, Egypt’s wealth was squandered.
In God’s strategic plan, that’s the ‘Goshen effect’,
His plan that, from His wrath, His people He’d protect.
After Pharaoh and Egypt had been devastated,
They blamed, then drove out slaves whom they had dominated. 2
From all across Goshen, the Hebrews left in haste.
That is a key point on which this effect is based.
But why were the slaves exposed to the first three afflictions?
Were there some limits to the Goshen effect protections?
And with the Goshen effect now well-tested and proven,
‘When and how will it next be applied? That’s the key question!
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1 See: Exodus 4 - 12
2 Note, though God claimed full responsibility, Egyptians seemingly blamed the Hebrews. See: Exodus 12:33
