When we make the decision to follow Jesus or rededicate ourselves to him, we do so with hopes for a new and better life. We plan to work toward reconciliation of broken relationships. We long to break with various sinful patterns of life. We promise to pray, read the Bible, and witness to neighbors. We make a commitment to God with the promise that eventually God will make all things new in our lives
But we soon learn that the path to a transformed life isn't always as direct as we would like. Beginning with Exodus 14, we find God's Word addressing this reality. As the Israelites passed out of Egypt on their Passover night, they must have thought that all of the dreams they could ever dream were coming true. After years of slavery, the Israelites weren't just being allowed to leave Egypt; they were being begged to go! "Free at last!" they must have thought. "Thank God Almighty, we're free at last."
But they weren't fully free, of course. Not yet. In fact, if the Israelites had known what was in front of them as they received some valuable items for the trip from their Egyptian neighbors and stuffed some food into their travel bags, I think that most of them would have stayed right where they were. The great Promised Land was many miles, and many years, away still. Only the youngest among them there on that Passover night would survive to see it. And on the journey, they would know hunger, thirst, disease, and war. Before they'd gone 50 miles, they would be whining to return.
God's path to remaking our lives is seldom short and never easy. Many of us don't realize that when we first place faith in Jesus. If someone warns us of struggles and disappointments to come, we may choose to deny those possibilities. But it doesn't take long to realize that our feet are still on fallen planet earth. The harsh realities of living in the wilderness begin to dawn on us. And then we face the real test: Do we stay on the pathway of obedience to and faith in God—or do we go back to Egypt?
Over the next two weeks, we will look at what some call a historical dramatization of the tests we face when we walk with God. The Israelites would have to learn that walking with God demands patience, perseverance, and trust. Their journey began with a thrill. It may be that God's purpose in having his people leave Egypt in a miraculous way was to start them well on their journey with him. At the outset of that sojourn toward the Promised Land, God taught them several lessons for the journey. We will seek to learn and apply them here at LAC.
To His Glory,
Dr. Greg Waybright
Senior Pastor