Why We’re Watching the Calendar Like Pharaoh Is Still Negotiating
“Then Moses and Aaron went and said to Pharaoh, ‘Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, “Let my people go, that they may hold a feast to me in the wilderness.”‘”
(Exodus 5:1, ESV)
Standing at Pharaoh’s Negotiating Table…….
In my day job, I manage safety and compliance for a trucking company. I sit across the table from a lot of promises. “I’ll wear my seatbelt from here on out.” “I won’t touch my phone while I’m driving, I promise.” “I’ll follow the hours-of-service rules — mostly.” You learn pretty quickly in that line of work that almost nobody says no to safety outright. They negotiate it down instead. A little bit of compliance here, a reasonable-sounding exception there, and pretty soon “mostly following the rules” is doing all the work that “following the rules” was supposed to do.
Pharaoh ran the exact same play on Moses. Four times.
An Inspired Reality Check…….
God’s instructions to Moses were not complicated. “Let my people go three days’ journey into the wilderness, that we may sacrifice to the Lord our God” (Exodus 3:18, ESV). Three days. Just enough distance to worship God the way He’d actually asked to be worshiped, away from every one of Egypt’s gods and every one of Egypt’s rules.
Pharaoh never said no to that. What he did was worse, in a way, because it was so reasonable-sounding. Read through Exodus 8 and 10 and you’ll find four separate offers, each one designed to look like a fair compromise while making sure Israel never actually got the three days God asked for:
- “Sacrifice here, in the land” (Exodus 8:25) — Keep your religion, just keep it where Pharaoh can keep an eye on it.
- “Don’t go very far” (Exodus 8:28) — Fine, some distance. Just not enough to actually matter.
- “The men can go, but leave the children behind” (Exodus 10:8–11) — Keep your faith for yourself. Don’t you dare hand it down.
- “Leave your flocks and herds” (Exodus 10:24) — Go on, then. Just leave your resources under my control.
Now, here’s what gets me every time I read that passage. Every single one of Pharaoh’s offers sounds like it could have worked. That’s exactly what makes them dangerous. He wasn’t trying to keep Israel enslaved anymore by that point. He was trying to keep them close enough that Egypt still had a claim on them.
Friends, brothers and sisters in Christ, that’s not just an ancient negotiating tactic. That’s the same offer showing up in our lives right now, dressed up in modern clothes.
Why We’re Watching the Calendar…….
So here’s what this blog is going to do for the next six months. Every Monday, we’re going to look at whatever the real calendar hands us — a holiday, an election, a trend on our kids’ phones, a fresh “prophecy update” making the rounds online — and we’re going to ask one plain question: which of Pharaoh’s four offers is this, and have we already said yes to it?
That’s not a gimmick. That’s the whole heart of A Three Days’ Journey. God’s people have always been called to get enough distance from the world’s system to actually see it clearly and worship Him purely — not to hide from people, not to check out of life, but to come back different.
Now, before we go one more step, let me say this plainly, because I don’t want anybody to misunderstand where this is headed. Separation is not the same thing as isolation. Moses never asked Pharaoh to let Israel disappear forever. He asked for three days so they could worship — and later on, so they could become a light to the very nations they’d left. That’s the whole shape of this series: come out, get clear, then go back in as somebody genuinely different. Keep that in mind on the weeks this gets uncomfortable, because it will.
A Confession from the Checkout Line of My Own Heart…….
Let’s bring this close to home this week, because Labor Day just passed us by.
I’ll be honest with you. In my own line of work, my worth can start to feel like it’s measured by how clean my numbers look, how few incidents get reported on my watch, how well the whole operation runs under my name. That’s not evil in itself — good work matters, and I take real responsibility for it. But somewhere along the way, it’s easy for “doing good work unto the Lord” to quietly turn into “my job title is who I am.”
Israel did the same thing with a lot less excuse. God rescued them from Egypt with plagues and a parted sea, and not long after, they were grumbling in the wilderness, “We remember the fish we ate in Egypt that cost nothing… but now our strength is dried up” (Numbers 11:5–6, paraphrased). They weren’t really craving fish. They were craving the old, familiar sense of identity that Egypt’s system had given them — even though that system had been working them half to death the whole time.
So let me ask you the same question I’ve had to ask myself this week: where is your sense of worth actually coming from most days? Is it coming from being loved by God — or is it coming from your job, your title, your paycheck, how full or busy your calendar looks? Those can produce the exact same Tuesday on the outside and be two entirely different lives on the inside.
What’s Coming the Next Six Months…….
Without giving away every week, here’s a taste of where we’re headed together:
- Holidays most of us have never actually looked into — where they really came from, and what we’ve assumed without checking.
- An election season, and the specific way churches and Christians can turn political hope into something Scripture never asked it to be.
- What social media and constant screens are doing to our kids’ hearts and attention.
- The strange pull of “prophecy update” content that keeps predicting the end and keeps being wrong.
- And the biggest question of the whole series: who is “Israel,” really, now that Christ has come? What does the church actually inherit, and where does the modern nation of Israel fit into that story?
Every one of those is going to get the same treatment — honest, biblical, and aimed at real life, not information for its own sake.
Don’t Settle for “Close Enough!”
Here’s the one thing I want you to walk away with this week. You don’t have to solve six months of spiritual growth today. You just have to answer one honest question: which of Pharaoh’s four offers has your faith already quietly accepted?
Are you worshiping “in the land” — keeping your faith safely contained so it never costs you a thing? Have you gone “not very far” — just enough distance to feel like a good Christian, without it ever touching your money, your time, or your comfort?
Name it. Just name it out loud, even if it’s only to yourself and to God. That’s the whole first step of a three days’ journey, and it’s usually the hardest one.
Don’t Settle for Close Enough — Ask for the Whole Three Days!
In His Love, Pastor Chris
Closing Reflection: Which of Pharaoh’s four compromises has your faith actually settled for this year? What would the full three days’ distance cost you in that specific area?
Prayer: Lord, show me clearly where I’ve settled for “close enough.” Give me the courage to ask for the whole three days, not just the negotiated version. Amen.