We cry out to God for deliverance from drugs, alcohol, physical ailments and deformities, emotional pain, financial hardships, relational difficulties, sexual sin and loneliness. When God starts us through the journey, we murmur and complain. Running back to the familiarities of the bondage. How will we ever be officially free if we continue to pray, "Rescue me!" Then realize the journey is more that we are committed to give, so in our discomfort we cry out, "Stop, don’t do that! This bites! This just ain't right!"
I can only imagine God’s loneliness during the years of the Israelites’ slavery. God made it clear beginning in Exodus 5 that He wanted his people to worship Him. A life of worship. After the Drawing Near study by John Bevere I have learned that worship is not a slow song, but a life style dedicated to the Lord. Honoring Him in truth and action from the attitude of the heart. Even in pain and in loneliness. As the journey continues holding onto the promise of the living Word of God, in whatever season.
Even when God gave Moses specific traveling directions, which by the way wasn’t the shortest route to the promised land; but was in fact a place that backed them up against the wall...a wall of water. Why did God send them this route and why it is written in Exodus 14:2-4 (NLT), “Tell the people to march toward...the sea. Camp there along the shore...I have planned this so I will receive great glory at the expense of Pharoah and his armies...the Eqyptians will know that I am the Lord!...”
Pondering this scripture for days wondering what God was doing? Why would God take his people and put them up against a wall? A wall of water, none-the-less? And then say He planned it this way to show the Egyptians He is Lord. It seems to me, the Israelites were the ones who needed to be reminded He is Lord. They were the ones murmuring and complaining. It was just a few days earlier that they saw the frogs, the gnats, the river of blood, the death of the first born Egyptians. They saw the miracle working power of God through Moses and Aaron’s staff - but quickly they forgot. After 400 years of prayer, they forgot what God did just a few days before.
And then God does this fabulous miracle of parting the Red Sea. He supernaturally blow drys the land, so they can walk through it. These humungous walls of water separating down the middle for thousands and thousands of people to walk through.
What if the Red Sea symbolized a wall or a corner that we must cry out to God to have parted? That is the only way we can get to the other side? Maybe God is waiting to part our Red Sea, until all eyes are upon us and He can show the world His power? What if it was never about me, but for those who are watching what my God can do?
2 Samuel 22:26-29, “To the faithful you show yourself faithful; to those with integrity you show integrity. To the pure you show yourself pure, but to the wicked you show yourself hostile. You rescue those who are humble, but your eyes are on the proud to humiliate them.”
Challenge: What is your Red Sea? Is the attitude of your heart in a place where God can work on your behalf?
Oh my goodness...am I glad to have found your post this morning! It only affirms what I just posted on my blog last night! There are so many lessons in the wall....or what I have called "the wait." We simply have to take our eyes off of our struggles long enough to look for God's handiwork within the wait!
Blessings!
Diane
Posted by: Diane | April 21, 2006 at 07:26 AM