Between Egypt And The Promised Land

There are times in my life when I look back on the past with longing, thinking about people I knew and things I did, wanting the same things now that I remember from then. When Moses led the Children of Israel out of Egypt, they kept wanting to go back. After God parts the Red Sea and they walk through on dry land, they come to a place that doesn't have water and they “Cry out to the Lord,” saying they want to go back to where they came from. Then God makes the water sweet by a miracle and they go on a little bit further and they complain again because they’re "starving." God sends Manna from Heaven, and they complain that all they have to eat is Manna, and that when they were in Egypt they had so many different things to eat! The truth of it is that they were oppressed in Egypt and in slavery there, but all they remember are things they don't have now that are remembered with the glow of the past without remembering the truth of the pain of the past. This happens again and again and again, and it is the story of my born again life too. After every miracle God does in my life, I find myself at the next place where I am challenged asking Him why He took me out of my old life only to let me starve in this wilderness where He’s brought me to. I forget that He is God and that He can part the Red Sea, make bitter water sweet, and feed me with the Bread of Heaven. Even though I’ve seen His miraculous deliverance, provision, love and care many times, I see my current painful and difficult situation as something that I am stuck with that He can’t or won’t get me out of. I was talking about that with a Pastor friend of mine after another miraculous deliverance a few years ago, and he said he goes through the same thing, and that when God shows up with His provision, he always feels ashamed that he didn’t believe and trust and know how faithful God is. It's not a shame that comes from God - God takes away our shame - it is a feeling of being ashamed that he didn't trust the God he knows to be the God he knows.

I was thinking about my own Egypt, the life that I lived before I was born again and where God picked me up out of and brought me safely from. It was a real act of deliverance – I was set free, taken out of danger, and was given a fresh new start far away from the chains that bound me. The picture of that life was very beautiful on the surface, but it was a prison all the same, and I was a captive to a life that would never truly bring joy or peace or fulfillment. But the picture was very beautiful, especially in memory, and in those times when things get tough and keep getting tougher, a part of me wants to go back there and I ask God why I had to leave that easy life to walk in this very narrow and rocky and treacherous path.

There was a time many years ago when I was visiting a long ago boyfriend in Hawaii. He took me hiking on my first day there up through a waterfall. I’d never seen any place so beautiful, and I was so very much in love, but it was scary all the same. The paths on the edge of a precipice were narrow and covered with roots and rocks, and were slippery with mud because of all of the moisture. When we got into the waterfall itself, it was steep and got steeper and steeper, and more slippery with moss and running water. After we got back to the car, my boyfriend said that he had been scared we wouldn’t get down again. He had always walked up through that path with Hawaiian friends who were much bigger than he was. He was tall and a good hiker and had walked that way many times before, but he hadn’t noticed how steep the paths were or how treacherous until he had to help me get up them and didn't have help himself. Life feels that way sometimes. We walk along on a path we thought we knew well, but suddenly it is different. The people we are with have changed or maybe we are walking alone or feel that we are. It can happen in an instant, overnight, from one moment to the next. We’re suddenly in a place that is not comfortable, a place that we don’t know how we can get back down from, a place that is not the place where we wanted to go. It’s in those times when I  don’t know how to keep going that I find myself wanting to go back. But the way back down is even more treacherous than the road ahead. It can be tougher going down a mountain than it is going up.

One thing that God promises us is that He will never leave us or forsake us. He doesn't tell us we'll have an easy life, in fact, He tells us very honestly that we will have troubles in this life. I couldn’t live in my old life any more, as much as I may think I want to. I’ve been to the top of the mountain and I know that the water is sweet. There are orchids there and ginger flowers, and fresh guava and mangos and passion fruit. It may be a tough journey, but once I get there, I know it will be worth the trip. And no matter what happens, I know that even when I feel like I'm alone, He's always there to make sure I get there.

Blessings,

Jannie Susan