Saturday, October 23, 2010

The Sea of Life

Things seem to be changing all around me these days.  We have a new administrator in the office (which I am thankful for), we have a Lead Pastor who is moving on to a new church as of tomorrow, the ministries I work with are all morphing into new layouts, there will be an interim pastor coming, eventually there will be a new lead pastor and then add an the changes of my personal life, it all makes for some interesting moments.

Sometimes each moment by itself can be extremely exciting and other times it can seem very stressful or overwhelming.  Place them all together (as usually circumstances never happen independently of one another) and it can be either a euphoric dream or an intimidating death sentence.  We are never quite sure what we are going to get from moment to moment.  We can be living in the excitement of life and within minutes watch as the world begins to crash around us and attempts to swallow us up. 

I sometimes wonder how Moses felt standing at the Red Sea with the freshly released people of Israel.  Here he is with Pharaoh's army in hot pursuit behind them and a bunch of squabbling babies crying about how they would rather be slaves in Egypt then die out in the dessert.  And what does God say to him?
"Why do you cry to Me?  Tell the children of Israel to go forward." (Exodus 14:15)
I think sometimes I spend more time crying to God about the seemingly impassable situations of life then I do in trusting Him that He is leading me and encouraging me to move forward.  I look at the big sea of life in front of me and the hurts of the past behind me and I think that it would have been better to be a slave to my past then to think that I have a future ahead of me that is full of promise and hope.  I forget that God is in control.

I don't know what everyone else is facing.  I just know that the same God that told Joshua, "Have I not commanded you? Be strong and of good courage; do not be afraid, nor be dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go." (Joshua 1:9), is the same God that is with you today.

As I face the adversities of this life, I choose to be strong; full of courage; without fear; possessing a quiet confidence, that will carry me through the changes into the promise that God has given me.  I don't know what my future holds, but I know Who holds the future.

1 comment:

  1. Amen! Between Moses, Joshua, you and me... we should try and get this right...

    ReplyDelete