A WEEKLY CHALLENGE
This morning, I remember a line from a song that is for all intents and purposes, scriptural. “… if I can see it, I can do it.” Remember that Jesus said He couldn’t do anything that He didn’t see the Father do. (John 5:19) Many times, even the secular song can come from an influence of God’s hand and God’s word.
It is easy to say that God is doing great things when we can see the things He’s doing. I know… “duh.” During the deliverance from captivity in around 539 B.C., we see it written in Psalm 126:1-3: When the LORD turned again the captivity of Zion, we were like them that dream. Then was our mouth filled with laughter, and our tongue with singing: then said they among the heathen, The LORD hath done great things for them. The LORD hath done great things for us; whereof we are glad.
Today as we move farther and farther away from the literal cross and closer and closer to a literal eternity, the enemy really doesn’t want us to be able to tap into the realm of the spirit. It must be a catch 22 for him. He wants to be noticed and glorified, but at the same time, he doesn’t. His glory comes through the flesh of man and through the fall of man.
As time has passed and science and logic have come to the forefront, there is a majority of people in the world who have a hard time believing in a supernatural realm. They fail to realize that there are two worlds coinciding and that very soon these two worlds shall collide.
Because we are a people that are governed by our five senses and have learned to be comfortable with those senses, we have a sense of accomplishment and security in them. We feel no need to go outside our realm… until… a crisis arises which we cannot understand, nor do we have any answers for. It is a crisis where our senses are keen to the problem, but there is no comfort from anything we are equipped with.
These limited senses do not have the capability of seeing into or believing into the future. They can only know what has transpired in the past. What we have done, is mastered the art of hindsight. We can see where God has been, how He’s worked, miracles that have occurred, things that have been accomplished with no logic or reasoning – and when all reason and logic have been exhausted, then and only then do we spout a statement like, “Maybe there really is a God.”
The children of Israel were standing before an impossible and angry sea in the middle of a dark night. The cloud that was before them removed itself and went behind them as a protection from their past which was even then at the door. The people were frozen in fear, and so the cloud went between their eyes and their enemy. Only then did they turn around toward the sea.
I am very sure that those people who had seen miracle after miracle were saying, “yeah, I know what God did before, but what about this time?” There it is. The failure to walk in a supernatural realm until after the miracle occurs. He gave his name. “I am.” He isn’t just “I used to be,” or “I was,” or “I’m going to be.” No. “I AM.” Right here and right now.
Before the miracle occurs… be careful what comes from your mouth. Fear generates horrible consequences when it is stirred up by your five senses. And in this case, the Lord put a cloud to cover their eyes – but unfortunately, their ears still heard the snorting of horses, the chinking of armor and the threats of a very angry enemy.
There was not one person standing before that sea that was proclaiming that they were going to go through it and not get their feet wet. They were a huddled mass of wet mess – fearing for their lives and crying into the night air. They were slaves. They were not allowed to learn to swim. When you don’t learn to conquer something, it can terrorize you.
IN FACT: Moses panicked:
Exo 14:10 And when Pharaoh drew nigh, the children of Israel lifted up their eyes, and, behold, the Egyptians marched after them; and they were sore afraid: and the children of Israel cried out unto the LORD.
Exo 14:11 And they said unto Moses, because there were no graves in Egypt, have you taken us away to die in the wilderness? Why have you dealt with us in this manner, to carry us out of Egypt?
Exo 14:12 Is not this the word that we did tell you in Egypt, saying, let us alone that we may serve the Egyptians? For it had been better for us to serve the Egyptians, than that we should die in the wilderness.
Exo 14:13 And Moses said unto the people, Fear ye not, stand still, and see the salvation of the LORD, which he will shew to you today: for the Egyptians whom you have seen today, ye shall see them again no more or forever.
Exo 14:14 The LORD shall fight for you, and you shall hold your peace.
The Lord then stepped in quite quickly and pretty much told Moses to essentially “SHUT UP.” God didn’t want them to stand still… He wanted them to go forward into their miracle! God didn’t want them to never see the Egyptians again… He wanted them to witness the corpses of the enemy for closure and to know that they could never harm them ever again! (Exo 14:30 Thus the LORD saved Israel that day out of the hand of the Egyptians; and Israel saw the Egyptians dead upon the sea shore.)
Exo 14:15 And the LORD said unto Moses, why are you crying unto me and putting words in my mouth? Speak unto the children of Israel that they go forward:
Exo 14:16 But lift up your rod, and stretch out your hand over the sea, and divide it: and the children of Israel shall go on dry ground through the midst of the sea.
At times we panic. We try to come up with answers when we don’t have the answers. Moses had his back to the wall and told everyone to stand still, be at peace, don’t worry, be happy. It was not what God was saying at all much less what He was calling them to do. He was calling them into the impossible. “STAND STILL AND SEE THE SALVATION OF THE LORD…” is so misused – and so out of context at times.
There was an old song by Michael Card that reminded us to “To hear with my heart, to see with my soul. To be guided by a hand I cannot hold. To trust in a way that I cannot see. That’s what faith must be.”
This week’s challenge. Let Him teach you how to be courageous by letting Him take you into a miracle.