The following thought occured to me during seder night.

Rav Yaakov Kamenetsky asks in his sefer emes leyaakov, when Moshe first came to tell the jews that he had been chosen to lead them out of egypt, they believed him right away (Shemos 4:31) but then after Pharoh refused to listen and hardened their work load they refused to listen to him anymore (6:9)? What changed?

He answers that the people at first thought that Pharoh would surely listen to a message from G-d, all it needed was for a leader to talk some sense into him and how could he rationally refuse, it was all going to happen in a totally natural way. However, they were wrong, it wasn't all going to end naturally, Pharoh wasn't just going to change his mind, and they gave up hope . That, says Rav Yaakov, is when they became worthy of salvation, when they stopped believing that they could be saved through natural means. As it says in gemorah sanhedrin 'the son of dovid (ie moshiach) won't come until the jews give up hope from the geulah'. Rav Yaakov explains this to mean until we give up hope in a natural geulah and realise that it can only happen through H'shm!

Sounds a lot like our nisayon, our struggle, we have to take the lesson from geulas mitsrayim and in all areas of our lives, as well as our addiction, move away from " kochi veotzem yodi osoh li es hachayil hazeh" (Devorim 8:17) towards a realisation that "ki hoo hanosein lecho koach la'asos choyil" (8:18). Let's let go of OUR way and just step back and daven to H'shm to show us the way!

May we all be zoche to a true geulah!