In the Exodus story, we find that God has power over both the enemy, who is crushed by God’s right hand, and over the waters themselves. The psalmist puts it this way—“When the waters saw you, O God, when the waters saw you, they were afraid; indeed, the deep trembled” (Ps. 77:16).
Moses puts it this way—“Who is like you, O LORD, among the gods?” (Exod. 15:2). The image of God, sung about by Moses and recalled by the psalmist, is of a powerful God who inspires awe, reverence, and fear. God has the ability to redeem his people from the very real oppression of the Egyptians in a powerful and mighty way. The God who is strong enough to take the hand of the psalmist that stretches out at night without wearying is the same God who led the Israelites through the waters by the hand of Moses and Aaron. So whenever the waters rage around us and we’re too fearful to cross over into the other side, we need to remember that a God who can do all this can save us from whatever oppresses and depresses us.
Songs of Faithfulness
What songs of God’s faithfulness, of God’s goodness, are a part of your story?
What moments in your life have caused you to sing, “Who is like you, o LORD, among the gods?” (Exod. 15:2) How are you finding ways to speak—or to sing—about God’s work in the past? What deep water has God brought you through?
We rarely make it safely to the other side on our own; for the Israelites, salvation was communal. Who are the Moses, the Miriams, the Aarons, that God has placed in your life to help guide you through the waters? Whose hands have reached out to you and helped you when you couldn’t make it to the other side by yourself? For whom do you need to be a Moses, or a Miriam, or an Aaron?
When we pass through the waters, God demonstrates his own faithfulness and we demonstrate our growing trust. It means we’ve learned to sing a new song—it means we’ve moved to a new place. When we sing about all that God has done in our lives, we make that all-important move from the head to the heart—because God has spoken—or sung—into our hearts about his own faithfulness. We sing about the actual, tangible, real things God has done in our lives. These songs of God’s faithfulness and our trust can sustain us whenever it’s time for us to pass through another wilderness or face another sea. We sing about God’s ability to part the waters and to bring us safely to the other side.
Part of the way forward involves listening to our own stories, allowing them to take on flesh. The story of God—and our place inside of it—“cannot be carried in papyrus sheets or in parchment scrolls,” as Carol Ochs says. “It must be carried in bones, joints, and flesh.”
As theologian Frederick Buechner advises:
“Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery that it is. In the boredom and pain of it no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace.”
We are wise to pay attention to the burning bushes, spaces of wilderness, and parting waters in our lives. These are all places where God has shown up and carried us through. In listening to our lives, we are listening to the voice of God that, over time, may become stronger than the voices of fear and self-rejection. At the Red Sea, God drowned the taskmasters. And he is able to drown out the voices of our taskmasters, too. The waters that raged over the Egyptians became walls that protected the Israelites; God distanced them from their taskmasters. Waters drown—and drown out. “When you pass through the waters,” the prophet Isaiah tells us, “I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you” (Isa. 43:2).
This article is a part of a three-part series: