Crossing our Red Sea

"You will bring them in and plant them on the mountain of your inheritance" (Exodus 15:17).

This remarkable chapter is the Song of Moses, the first song on record and a glorious song of gratitude and salvation after the Red Sea crossing. The people had been redeemed by blood out of Egypt, the house of bondage, and "Then Moses and the Israelites sang this song to the Lord..." (v.1).

All finally have a Red Sea experience. What matters is, do we drown or do we forge ahead? "Why are you crying out to me?...move on. Raise your staff and stretch out your hand..." (Exodus 14:15,16). So there is something for us to do, also. "Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and all that night the Lord drove the sea back...and turned it into dry land" (Exodus 14:21).

Our responsibility is to believe that God will keep His promises of a dry land while we go through the waters of affliction and God will take care of the rest. The waters become walls of protection, as God brings us through on to the solid land of His love and deliverance.

And when (not if) we are brought out of the bondage of unbelief and hopelessness, then we, too, will sing our praise of thanksgiving to our Savior that we have been planted on God's mountain of deliverance. The Redeemer rolls back all the difficulties and opens a way of escape for our weariness. How can we not sing for joy?

One of the great lessons in the experience of the Red Sea is that of going forward, anyway. God doesn't count our failures against us and He doesn't want us to sink into the quicksands of qualms and quibbles. God's command to us is to go forward; advance His cause and ours, too, will be advanced. It is when we doubt or question His abilities that we begin to cry out in despair. Remember, "God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble" (Psalm 46:1).