Turning your neighbor’s rivers into blood, causing frogs to crawl up in their beds, and killing their cattle with hail, among others, weren’t exactly the top tips on how to make friends… There’s no doubt that by this time, the Egyptians hated the Israelites. They were sick of them.

And yet, here comes Moses with another one of his God’s brilliant ideas. Go ask your neighbors — that’s right, the Egyptians who hate you — to give you silver and gold. Give you, not sell to you.

What is God thinking? Does He want us to antagonize the Egyptians even more? Is He trying to get us all killed?

No. He was simply trying to teach His people how to use the power of asking. Notice that He was already planning on giving the Israelites favor in the eyes of the Egyptians. But the Israelites would only find that out if they went and asked them.

Lesson?

God wants us to have the courage, the brazen face to ask what we want even of those least likely to give us anything. In other words, if somebody has what you want, just go and ask. It doesn’t matter if he’s your enemy. And it doesn’t matter the size of your request either. Gold and silver? Of your enemy? Just ask!

We of course, with all our fears and shyness and other little monsters scaring us in our minds, wouldn’t dare ask such things even of our friends.

What is God thinking? That’s what I want to know.

And that’s how I want to think too.