Exodus

Words for the Hard Place (Part IV)

Words for the Hard Place (Part IV)

Part of the challenge of God in the wilderness is not to fight the work God is doing in our lives, but to allow ourselves to be held in the wilderness waiting. This is another promise God is making to the Israelites: When you feel stalled in the same place, know that waiting is part of the process. The pillar will move again when the time is right. I am with you in the waiting. Throughout their wandering in the wilderness, the Israelites are led by a pillar of cloud and fire: “And the LORD went before them by day in a pillar of cloud to lead them along the way, and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, that they might travel by day and by night. The pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night did not depart from before the people” (Exod. 13:21-22).

Words for the Hard Place (Part I)

Words for the Hard Place (Part I)

What are the words that God offers to us in the hard place? What are the ways in which God speaking to our hearts in the wilderness? There are many, but here is one—When you find yourself hungry and thirsty for the life you used to know, trust that what God gives you is better. The Israelites’ wilderness experience concerns actual hunger and thirst. “Why did you bring us out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and livestock with thirst?” they cry (Exod. 17:3). They accuse: “For you have brought us out into the wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger” (Exod. 16:3). They are actually hungry and actually thirsty, but their physical hunger and thirst symbolizes a larger reality—they have left everything that they know to journey into an uncertain future.

The Way Forward: Part III

The Way Forward: Part III

In the Exodus story, and in our own lives, there is the water that drowns—and drowns out—the voices of the taskmasters. But there is another kind of water—the water that restores and brings rest. The work of God is not just to set free—the work of God is also to transform and to heal. What we find about freedom from taskmasters is that their voices may still linger. What we find about freedom from taskmasters is that their words may make us bitter. Indeed, no sooner has Miriam finished her song—“Sing to the LORD, for he has triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider he has thrown into the sea” (Exod. 15:21)—than the Israelites are faced with bitter waters.

The Way Forward: Part II

The Way Forward: Part II

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.