The Israelites camped alongside the
shores of the Red Sea just as God had told them to. They were
absolutely in the Will of God and adhering to His Words without
wavering. But then a problem attacked them. Pharaoh and his army
were back! They were going to attack them and force them to return
back to Egypt as slaves. They were paralyzed with fear and had a
total nervous breakdown under the pressure! And the first person
they blamed was Moses; they immediately turned to him and
complained to him. His reaction was beautiful to me. How Moses had
changed in a short while. I mean just a while ago he basically told
the Lord that he was a nobody and he couldn't possibly help the
Lord in freeing these people, and here he was a tower of faith.
"Don't be afraid. Just stand where
you are and watch the Lord rescue you. The Egyptians that you see
today will never be seen again. The Lord Himself will fight for
you. You won't have to lift a finger in your defense!" Exodus
14:13, 14
He had amazing faith, something we
can all strive for. But the very next sentence is quite interesting
to me:
'Then the Lord said to Moses, "Why
are you crying out to Me? Tell the people to get moving!" Exodus
14:15
The Lord was in effect saying here
that Moses should stop praying and start acting! Interesting. I
think we can learn something from that. Prayer is absolutely vital
to our Christian lives; it is our life line and our way of
communicating to our living God. But it would seem to me that
sometimes we need to act to. Sometimes we should stop praying and
start acting. I carefully thought about this and it is so true. I
think sometimes we can use prayer as an excuse for being passive.
For example we will say we will act once we have received guidance
on what to do. But in the mean time we have received guidance and
confirmations long ago and we simply use prayer as an excuse not to
act.
We need to examine our motives when
we don't act. Is it really because we haven't received guidance
yet, or is it because we don't really want to act? God had told
Moses that He will use Moses' staff to display His wonders and do
His miracles, and God expected Moses to stop crying out to Him and
act by using his staff. Moses did act and the result was
miraculous, amazing.
Start acting too when you know what
God wants you to do. You will be taking one step closer to the
miraculous happening.
Father God, please forgive us if we
don't act when You want us to act. Please give us the courage to
stand up and do what You want us to do. We only want to please You.
Amen