The people of Israel were in great distress.
With the Red Sea before them, they saw their impending death as the image of hundreds of chariots and horsemen faintly appeared on the horizon.
At this point, they would’ve sooner remained in harsh bondage than to die out in the desert. The series of events that led them to trust Moses, to believe that there was a greater promise, and to ultimately set off into the wilderness had left their heads spinning. Still, they followed. They knew the prophecies, the stories passed down from their forefathers, but all seemed lost as soon as Pharaoh’s armies showed up.
They doubted the trajectory of their lives. Nothing made sense any more. “Moses must have led us out here because there wasn’t enough burial ground for us in Egypt,” they thought.
Right when all hope was lost, as despair had fully encompassed their bodies and minds, there it was.
It was outside of the realm of their imaginations, greater than anything they could have hoped for or dreamed.
He didn’t come running in the form of a glorified human, a god, fighting off the masses of Egyptians with a sword.
He didn’t just magically transport them to the land He had promised them, disappearing them from the view of Pharaoh’s armies, bypassing the sea altogether.
No.
Their Father had been there all along, and He made a way.
His rescue overwhelmed and amazed them. It broke them of their fears and doubts.
His great nostrils flared as he blew the sea in half, making a path for them on dry ground, where no one could hurt them or keep them from moving forward.
Their lives were saved, their spirits were revived, and they were all witness to something that only a God of the universe could carry out.
Often, in this life, we forget that we have this same God on our side.
We may be in despair, at the end of our rope, with no apparent option but for the enemies and the darkness to continue driving their armies toward us with an agenda of death and destruction.
The God that parted the sea for His people when there was no other way is there, for YOU. Had the people of Israel had it easy? Not by any means. They had waited a long time for deliverance from slavery. Had they seen their share of hardship? Absolutely. But in the end, they saw and knew a God who took their despair and turned it into great wonder.
If I know Him at all, I am certain that He wants this for all of us. We may not be exempt from the difficulty, and He may not teleport us to our promised land, but there is one thing that I can believe in with all that is within me.
He WILL make a way.
And He will do it for His Name’s sake, which is ultimately for all of our good because we all need Him. Just as the people of Israel needed Him on that day, we need Him for our salvation.
We need Him in our waiting and in our hardships. We need Him in our sorrows, our worries, and our despair.
We need Him in our sickness, our grief, and our longing. In the midst of all of these things, He is there, ready to act at His appointed time; never too early, and never too late.
Allow Him to embrace You today: the One who parted the Red Sea for His people, great and small, who were scared at the edge of the sea, somewhere in the beginning of His great story of redemption. He sees you in the same way He saw them. With great, enormous, miracle-working love. And He isn’t going to leave you stranded.
In response, as He continued to take care of them in the wilderness, this is what He asked of them:
“Give earnest heed to the voice of the LORD your God.
Do what is right in His sight.
Give ear to His commandments.
Keep all of His statutes.” (Which are for your good.)
As you take these words to heart and as you witness His hand in your own life, may He bless you and make evident His way before you.
{Response to Exodus 15}
Leave A Reply