I am the Way - Exodus 8
When I was growing up, I had a friend named David who was incredibly superstitious.
One day we were walking home from the park, and I noticed he was walking strangely—stepping over certain parts of the sidewalk and avoiding the cracks. I asked him what he was doing.
He looked at me and said something I had never heard before:
“Step on a crack and break your mother’s back.”
Now, I took that very seriously. I thought he had just said something about my mom. But he quickly explained that it was just a game. Soon enough, I was walking funny too—trying to avoid every crack in the sidewalk.
But I’m also a little competitive and very literal. So I asked him, “Okay, but what about the lines? Do the lines count?”
He replied, “Step on a line and break your father’s spine.”
And just like that, he had introduced me to the world of superstition.
He had other ones too. When we walked past a cemetery, he would hold his breath. When I asked why, he said you were supposed to hold your breath so the spirits wouldn’t follow you home.
I had never heard anything like that before.
But looking back now, I realize what was happening.
He was teaching me to be superstitious.
What Is Superstition?
A superstition is a belief or practice that assumes certain actions will influence outcomes—even when there is no real connection.
Things like:
Breaking a mirror means seven years of bad luck
Walking under a ladder brings misfortune
Holding your breath near a cemetery keeps spirits away
Many of these ideas can actually be traced back to ancient Egypt. Egyptians believed reflections contained part of the soul, which is why breaking a mirror was considered dangerous. They believed certain shapes—like the triangle formed by a ladder—were sacred and shouldn’t be passed through.
Their culture was full of these beliefs.
And in the words of Stevie Wonder:
“When you believe in things that you don’t understand, then you suffer. Superstition ain’t the way.”
That’s exactly the lesson God begins teaching in the book of Book of Exodus.
God vs. the Gods of Egypt
In Book of Exodus chapter 8, God begins confronting the spiritual system of Egypt through the plagues.
Each plague is not random. Each one directly challenges something the Egyptians believed about their gods.
For example, the second plague involves frogs.
At first glance, frogs seem like a strange choice. They’re annoying—but not exactly terrifying.
But frogs were sacred in Egypt because they were associated with the goddess Heqet. She was believed to be the goddess of fertility, childbirth, and new life.
Her image even had the face of a frog.
So when frogs suddenly covered the land—filling houses, beds, ovens, and bowls—God was making a point.
Egypt believed frogs symbolized life.
God showed that he alone controlled life.
In other words:
You think she’s the frog god?
She’s the fraud god.
When God Exposes the Fraud
One of the most powerful lessons in this story is how God draws people to himself.
Many people assume God uses fear to make people follow him.
But often God does something different.
He exposes the fraud.
He reveals the things we trusted that never had the power we thought they did.
Sometimes God removes the things we relied on—not to punish us, but to show us they were never meant to carry the weight of our hope.
That’s exactly what was happening in Egypt. One by one, God dismantled the illusions that Pharaoh and his people believed in.
And this still happens today.
Our Modern Superstitions
Most of us don’t worry about stepping on cracks anymore.
But we still have our own forms of superstition.
We place ultimate hope in things that were never meant to be ultimate.
Sometimes it’s:
politics
money
relationships
careers
success
influence
Sometimes we expect our spouse, our children, our job, or even our pastor to do for us what only God can do.
We look for security, identity, and meaning in places that can’t provide them.
But the message of the plagues is clear:
Superstition isn’t the way.
God is the way.
The Real Question
Pharaoh had multiple chances to respond. Each plague was an invitation to acknowledge the true God.
Even when Pharaoh asked for relief from the frogs, he delayed it. When Moses asked when the frogs should be removed, Pharaoh strangely said:
“Tomorrow.”
Who would choose to live with frogs one more night?
But that’s often what we do.
We delay surrender.
We postpone obedience.
We wait another day.
The Invitation
The tragedy of Pharaoh’s story isn’t that he lacked evidence. It’s that he refused to believe what he was seeing.
His heart grew harder each time.
But the story leaves us with an important question:
What “superstitions” are we trusting today?
What are we expecting to give us what only God can give?
Because the invitation of Scripture is clear.
Jesus later said in Gospel of John:
“I am the way, the truth, and the life.”
Not superstition.
Not luck.
Not human power.
Just him.
