CHAPTER ONE:
Red Sea Rule 1
Realize that God means for you to be where you are.
Now the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: "Speak to the children of Israel, that they turn and camp before Pi Hahiroth, between Migdol and the sea, opposite Baal Zephon."
-Exodus 14:1-2
Cul-de-Sacs
The sea was before them, Pharaoh's hosts behind them, and the mountains around them. And all this, be it observed, permitted and ordered of God.
-C. H. Mackintosh
Reba Robinson lay awake night after night, tense and tired in her little room in Starkville, Mississippi.1 Her imagination raced out of control as her fingers clung to an old T-shirt that had once belonged to her son and still carried the scent of his cologne. He was confronting death in some exotic locale, though she didn't know where or what for, how or by whom.
Dillon was a marine assigned to a covert commando unit. His assignments were so secretive that even his mother could not be told the time or location of his missions.
But her mother's instincts told her when he was in harm's way, and during those times she fervently prayed for Dillon day and night. She was undoubtedly praying the night he swam ten miles from a submarine to the forbidden coast of a hostile country. She was praying the night he parachuted behind enemy lines from a high-flying aircraft. She was praying the day he jumped from a chopper through a hail of bullets, his eyes blinded with tears, to retrieve the body of his fallen compatriot. She was praying the night a terrorist stuck a gun in his face and pulled the trigger; and perhaps it was her prayers that caused the gun to jam, giving Dillon the split second he needed to "resolve the problem" and escape.
She prayed through nocturnal tears and terrors and torments.
When Dillon finally returned home, he was a hero whose bravery could never be explained, declassified, or honored. He couldn't discuss his exploits or seek help in processing his traumas. He tried making the transition from action hero to typical guy, but life slowed to a snail's pace in his little hometown. He began frequenting the local bars, trying not to remember what he couldn't forget.
Reba prayed on.
Like Dillon's mother, we sometimes go through prolonged periods of pain and pressure. Trapped by circumstances. Hurting. Afraid. Facing impossible odds. Traversing long, dark valleys.
Some circumstances are beyond our control, and something as simple as the ringing of a phone, a card in the mail, or a knock on the door can push us off the wire. We fall into a world of worry. Someone defined worry as a small trickle of fear that meanders through the mind, cutting a channel into which all other thoughts flow.
The preacher John R. Rice said, "Worry is putting question marks where God has put periods."
Bishop Fulton J. Sheen called worry "a form of atheism, for it betrays a lack of faith and trust in God."
But for some of us, worry seems as inherent as breathing.
We are, after all, likened in the Bible to sheep. I have a small flock of sheep (well, three of them) that live contentedly in our extended backyard. They're well fenced and well fed, and they have little to fear. But they sometimes fear anyway and can bolt in sheer panic at nothing more than a rabbit jumping through the grass.
That isn't a quality the Lord admires in His sheep. He wants us to say, "Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil . . ."
Recently, the phone rang in the wee hours. It was my sister, Ann, telling me that Mother had fallen ill, and they were rushing her to the hospital, but with little hope. Ann suggested I return home immediately. It was a terrible jolt, and an awful dread swept over me. But instantly a verse of Scripture came to mind-Psalm 116:15: Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints. From that moment, the grip of panic fell away, and I had peace.
Yet at other times, fear doesn't release its tenacious grip so easily. How can you not worry, after all, when you have a commando son being secretly inserted into deadly situations around the globe?
How can you not worry when your outflow exceeds your income, and the creditors are calling? Or when your financial portfolio is collapsing?
How can you not worry when your loved one is diagnosed with cancer?
How can you not worry when your job is terminated, your child is troubled, or your safety is at stake?
To put it differently, how can you not worry when the Red Sea faces you, the desert surrounds you, and the soldiers of Egypt are speeding toward you with drawn swords?
Just ask Reba Robinson. When amid her anxiety she accepted that God had placed her in that situation, difficult as it was, she began converting her worries into prayers and her fears into faith. She earnestly prayed for her son, trusting God to intervene, to redeem, to help, and to heal.
At a critical juncture in Dillon's life, a friend invited him to a revival meeting in a nearby church. He went grudgingly, intending to bolt as soon as the service was over. But the message struck home that night, and when the altar call was given, Dillon gripped the back of the pew as if trying to choke it. No terrorist had ever pursued him like the Hound of heaven. He later admitted, "I had faced death without shaking, but that night I was trembling like a leaf."
He staggered to the altar in tears, and that night a muscular, unsung hero fell to his knees and received Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.
In the story of the Red Sea, the Israelites followed the pillar of cloud and fire as carefully as possible, thrilled with their new freedom, full of excitement about the future. Yet as they followed Him, God deliberately led them into a cul-de-sac between hostile hills, to the edge of a sea too deep to be forded and too wide to be crossed.
The unmistakable implication of Exodus 14:1-2 is that the Lord took responsibility for leading them into peril. He gave them specific, step-by-step instructions, leading them down a route to apparent ruin: Turn and camp. Camp there. There, before the entrapping sea. Yes, right there in that impossible place.
The Lord occasionally does the same with us, testing our faith, leading us into hardship, teaching us wisdom, showing us His ways. Our first reaction may be a surge of panic and a sense of alarm, but we must learn to consult the Scriptures for guidance.
So, take a deep breath and recall this deeper secret of the Christian life: when you are in a difficult place, realize that the Lord either placed you there or allowed you to be there, for reasons perhaps known for now only to Himself.
The same God who led you in will lead you out.
When You Find Yourself . . .
"He knows the way He taketh," even if for the moment we do not.
-J. I. Packer
Our whole perspective changes when, finding ourselves in a hard place, we realize the Lord has either placed us there or allowed us to be there, perhaps for reasons presently known only to Himself.
On their first wedding anniversary, August 18, 1938, Russell and Darlene Deibler arrived in New Guinea to labor in the jungles for Christ. When the Japanese invaded the East Indies, the two were torn apart, and Russell was interned in a concentration camp where he died.
Darlene was imprisoned in another military camp where she suffered years of forced labor, indignity, near starvation, and afflictions such as beriberi, dysentery, and intestinal worms.
One day she was singled out for execution. Shock troops took her to a death camp and directed her toward a stark cell. These words were written on the door in chalk: Orang ini musti mati, "This person must die." The guards shoved her in the cell, and as the door slammed shut, Darlene fell on her knees to peer through the keyhole. When she saw the key make a complete revolution, she knew she was as good as dead.
As the footsteps of the guard receded, she fell backward in a cold sweat, trembling, fighting off sheer terror. Just then she found herself singing a song she had learned as a child in Sunday school back in Iowa:
Fear not, little flock,
Whatever your lot;
He enters all rooms,
"The doors being shut."
He never forsakes,
He never is gone,
So count on His presence
In darkness and dawn.
("Only Believe" by Daniel Reader)
Darlene felt strong arms about her, and she knew that though her captors could lock her in, they could not lock out her wonderful Lord. She was in an impossible spot, but she was there with a God who does impossible feats. She was there in His will, and she knew that His will would never put her where His presence could not sustain her. That assurance bore her through impossible times and preserved her life despite impossible odds.
Consider these men and women who, through no fault of their own, found themselves beset with soul-disabling difficulties while trying to follow God:
Hagar, a single mom, was forced into the desert with her boy to die of thirst.
Joseph, wanting to fulfill divine dreams, was seized, stripped, sold as a slave, and imprisoned in Egypt.
Moses was caught between the splendors of Egyptian royalty and thankless affliction with God's people.
David, being anointed by Samuel, was pursued by Israelite troops.
Hezekiah, seeking revival, was trapped by the most powerful army on earth, bent on annihilating his people.
The Lord's disciples sailed at His command on Galilee only to face a terror-filled night of storms and waves.
The Son of man Himself, fulfilling the Father's will, was nailed fast to wood and left to hang by ...
