Over Or Through?

Have you any experience burning bridges?  The advice is often given to never burn a bridge.  You just might need to retravel that road or need the help of what or who you left behind, as you crossed. We all have had situations or relationships, when sanity called for us to walk away, kick the dust off and travel on. There is comfort in knowing the bridge is still intact behind us. However, it may be necessary to burn a bridge, or better still, if there was never a bridge to begin with. Why? Because returning would hurt and not help us.

I credit my Bible study leader, Mary, with some insight about the Red Sea crossing. I have learned so much through her teaching. My last blog was on departing Egypt. Egypt representing our life in the world. Our old life, before God became the center. Old behaviors. Her teaching this Wednesday opened a new thought that I had never considered before in regard to the Sons Of Israel and their departure from Egypt.

We know God is the creator of miracles. Things which have no explanation. Such was the path He created across the Red Sea. The multitude rushed across on very recently parted waters. Yet, they walked on dry land. The moment they reached the other side, those walls of water returned over the Egyptian army, racing to destroy them. What must they have thought, as they stood watching their “bridge” return to the sea. Yes, they were safe, but they had no way to return, should this trip turn out badly.

We know they continued on to a destination that they should have reached in a few days. It ultimately took forty years. They were not long into their journey led by God until they were whining that they should have stayed over there. Back there, across the approximately twelve miles of water…with no bridge. Back there…the place of slavery by the world.

God could have easily taken them over the sea on a bridge of dry land. But bridges can be traveled in two directions. How many do you suppose would have run back across? How many would have run back to oppression and affliction because their fear and unknown future ahead of them, was too great? God desires that we go through the waters and the fires with Him, not over them. We don’t learn from going over hardship. We learn and are strengthened by experiencing life with Christ. He is our bridge. Faith building, that no matter the flood that covers or the fire we stand in, the triune God, is in there with us.

God would walk them in the desert for forty years on a trip that should have taken days. He led them day and night. He fed them just enough. He provided water. He kept their clothes and shoes from wearing out.  He disciplined them and taught them that He was a jealous God. He does not take second place with idols. It is Him or the world. It is the Promised Land or Egypt. Not both. Forty years to learn the importance of obedience to God. It took me eighteen years just to trust Jesus, then forty more, learning to stop glancing over my shoulder at my old life in the world. Our journeys are different and yet in some ways, the same.

The choice made in the garden is the base event for all things that interrupt the peace of life. Our first parents were given freedom of choice. That freedom is still ours. We can either be led by a loving God, or we can search for a way around the water back to the “Egypts” of our lives. Though their bridge dissolved before their eyes, they still looked back. They still reverted to some of their “Egypt” behaviors. Don’t we do that? We revisit past hurts and wounds. There are many ways to go back for a visit.

When stress and the pressures of life come against us, we may glance back over our shoulder. We were enslaved, lost and dying back there. In Egypt, the world without God. Since our journey following our Heavenly Father, we have had times of unbelievable grief, illness, financial disasters, broken relationships and crushing disappointments. Remember, it is that choice in the garden that brought those things to us. But, midst all of it, we can still  stand and say, we are blessed! This journey of life, is just that. A journey to eternal life, where life will truly begin again, without the disruptions. We pick up our own cross and we carry it like Jesus did. Our eyes on Him as He leads us through, not over, the difficulties of life. He stays with us through the waters and fires we experience.  It is a journey worth signing on to. It is the trip of a lifetime. The reward for completing it? Eternal life.

~Scripture For Today~

Mark 6:11

11 Any place that does not receive you or listen to you, as you go out from there, shake the dust off the soles of your feet for a testimony against them.” (NASB)

Isaiah 43:2-3

2 “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; And through the rivers, they will not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be scorched, Nor will the flame burn you. 3 “For I am the Lord your God, The Holy One of Israel, your Savior; I have given Egypt as your ransom, Cush and Seba in your place. (NASB)

Daniel 3:24-25, 28

24 Then Nebuchadnezzar the king was astounded and stood up in haste; he said to his high officials, “Was it not three men we cast bound into the midst of the fire?” They replied to the king, “Certainly, O king.” 25 He said, “Look! I see four men loosed and walking about in the midst of the fire without harm, and the appearance of the fourth is like a son of the gods!” (NASB)

28 Nebuchadnezzar responded and said, “Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego, who has sent His angel and delivered His servants who put their trust in Him, violating the king’s command, and yielded up their bodies so as not to serve or worship any god except their own God. (NASB) 

~Prayer For Today~

Hello Father! We pray for faith to follow You though the waters and fires of this life. We dwell on the blessings You have provided and the knowledge that we go through nothing that You are not there with us. Forgive us when we doubt and fear. In Jesus’ name. Amen.