There they were by the seashore. The sound of lapping water in their ears, perhaps a soft breeze coming in from the east. Things were good. Big steps had been made, and they had started out on a new adventure. God Himself had ushered them out of the last chapter and into a grand, albeit unknown, new one. Ahh adventure…
Until…the moment when chariot wheels can be heard racing over the terrain behind them. Until the adventuring-people turn and realize that this dream might have been a bit too big. Too much to bite off. They begin to do what we all do: they complain. And whine. And moan. Things were better before, weren’t they? Ummm, no…but there’s no telling them that. You see, in the scariest moments, the past that held us captive can seem less difficult than it was. They were slaves in their former lives. Certainly they don’t want to go back to that, do they?
When the complaining crescendos and Moses (their leader) turns his face to God, God reminds him of His dream for these people. His people. He reminds Moses that He gave this dream, and He will see it through to completion. That even though things were looking daunting and the deck seemed stacked against them, that He was and is and always will be the God of the moving. Of the advance. Of the forward motion. Even when the one He loves has a sea in front of them and their worst nightmare following behind. Even then. Get moving. For His glory.
God did the seemingly impossible that day. He split the sea that lay before His people. He provided escape in a way that I have a feeling none of the Israelites had ever imagined in their wildest dreams. And the enemies that hunted His people? He saw to it that they didn’t bully His kids again.
So what about you? What about me? When you and I have the sound of chariot wheels in our ears and a vast sea in front of us, what do we do? Retreat? Call it a day? Thank God for the start and stop trusting Him just when the going gets tough? We complain. That’s a certainty. We might even be tempted to look back and think that the past wasn’t so bad. That maybe we could go back and try to forget or explain away the dream that God placed in our hearts. In our souls.
What if we listened to Moses? He has been there and done that, hasn’t he? He offered God every excuse in the book, and none of them worked. When God speaks to dream into being, He will make a way for the dream to be manifested. God doesn’t miss a detail. Not one. And I think if you and I had an afternoon cup of tea with Moses, he would tell us that. I think he would remind us that, when God has given the dream, nothing will stand in His way. He will bring it to pass...and when the dream gets scary, He will make a way even when there seems to be no way. That’s just how He rolls.
May you and I find strength and courage and purpose in that today.
Many blessings,
Deni
We have moved. I up and quit my job. So did my husband. We have moved over 900 miles south. To Florida. Sunny (and, right now, fairly hot) Florida.
The simple answer when people ask why we moved is that we wanted to be close to Disney World. Easy, right? People who get the whole Disney thing nod their heads knowingly and grin. They sometimes even share a similar story from their own lives. Others, those who don’t get the appeal of a giant mouse and his neighborhood, nod their heads (and most likely silently think we’re crazy). Truth is, we are. Crazy.
Looking at what we’ve done through human eyes, it looks crazy. And scary. And illogical. Completely. However, if I try to look at things from a perspective bigger than my own, I start to see the bits and pieces that God brought together to get us here. To call us here. To woo us and shape us and craft us for this moment. Here. And it’s bigger than a mouse and his house.
I have to be honest and say that my heart hurt a bit during the trip south on I-95. I wasn't going to be living near my sister for the first time in a long time, and it felt yucky. I was excited to move, but the good-byes of the four weeks prior had taken their toll, and I found myself mourning and fearful of the future all at the same time. I wanted this new adventure. Fleshing it out was proving to be a little bittersweet. New adventures are like that, aren’t they? They are…well…new. And with newness comes change and uncertainty. But, in the midst of the new and the unfamiliar is the Constant. The Unchanging. The Forever God who loves you and me and everyone far more than we can ever begin to grasp. We are His, and He is ours. For all time. In all places. We are known and loved even when we find ourselves in unknown and unchartered territory.
After all, it’s only unknown and unchartered by us. He knew what would happen all along, and He knows what tomorrow holds.
Learning to trust Him,
Deni
