Today, I felt drawn to the book of Exodus, and I stumbled on the part right as the Israelites left the Red Sea that they had just crossed and started walking through the desert en route to the land God had said would be theirs. In fairness, the swath of text I read through covers the last six verses of one chapter, and then another entire chapter (thirty-six verses in all!), so I won't be pasting all of them in this post. If you're curious, though, here is a link to Biblegateway.com with the entire passage: Exodus 15:22-16:36, New International Version.
That said, here is one that jumped out:
Exodus 15:25-26The line "I am the Lord who heals you" jumped out at me. Perhaps it's because I never saw it before in this context. Most of my understanding of the Exodus story, post-Red Sea, is about: 1.) the Israelites complaining about this and that; 2.) God still performing miracles for them (through Moses); and 3.) God getting more and more frustrated and angry over the course of time, to the point that He even wanted to kill the Israelites. After all, it is written quite a bit later:
There the Lord issued a ruling and instruction for them and put them to the test. He said, “If you listen carefully to the Lord your God and do what is right in his eyes, if you pay attention to his commands and keep all his decrees, I will not bring on you any of the diseases I brought on the Egyptians, for I am the Lord, who heals you.”
Exodus 32:9-14, New International VersionI do realize this is not part of the original passage of text. I still choose to include it, because it indicates that God's first miracles after the Red Sea, while clearly showing the Israelites that He is with them, didn't move their hearts one bit. It is important, unfortunately, to note that these people, who saw God do amazing things, still suffered from a case of "what have you done for me lately?"
9 “I have seen these people,” the Lord said to Moses, “and they are a stiff-necked people. 10 Now leave me alone so that my anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them. Then I will make you into a great nation.”
11 But Moses sought the favor of the Lord his God. “Lord,” he said, “why should your anger burn against your people, whom you brought out of Egypt with great power and a mighty hand? 12 Why should the Egyptians say, ‘It was with evil intent that he brought them out, to kill them in the mountains and to wipe them off the face of the earth’? Turn from your fierce anger; relent and do not bring disaster on your people. 13 Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac and Israel, to whom you swore by your own self: ‘I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and I will give your descendants all this land I promised them, and it will be their inheritance forever.’” 14 Then the Lord relented and did not bring on his people the disaster he had threatened.
Who among us can really say that we aren't -- or haven't ever been -- like these Israelites? I know I can't say that. The other reason that Exodus 15 and 16 are resonating with me now is that, after a month of spiritual growth, there is definitely a sense of "now what?" in terms of not only my faith walk but my life. I spent the last month -- and in other ways, almost now the last year -- reaping gains of developing a manner of living that includes intentionally setting aside time regularly for getting to know God for who He is, instead of who my compulsive thinking/quarreling self paints Him to be. Even though I haven't really had "answers" (or, immediate answers I was seeking in terms of my personal prayer requests that I inserted as part of the fast), I have had answers in terms of where God was pointing out I've needed to look at and let Him work in me. That work is still ongoing.
The other personal life story has to do with when I got baptized. In the six months leading up to it, I received a large number of prophetic words like I'd never heard before and not heard since. Then: nothing. Over a year later, I finally got a sign from God to go read my Bible, something that I've resisted. But even so, it still took awhile (a few years) for my hearing from God to return, and even then it was still super-basic: Trust God. Stop striving. Give yourself grace. Don't be afraid. God wants to spend time with you. Get back in His word. And a few other things. Only now am I back to where I was right as I was getting baptized, not only that same familiar "now what?" expectation, but receiving more and more words along the lines of "you are about to enter a season of plenty," and things like it. Which is great. But I think back to when I got baptized, the questions come up: What happened? Why didn't all those prophecies and promises happen then?
There are several reasons, but the primary one is that I stopped reading the Bible completely. I had been reading through it all the way through for that whole year leading up to my baptism, but in retrospect a lot of why I was doing it was for its novelty. There were books and passages I had never read before. Once the year ended, I felt: "mission accomplished," and lost my energy for it. The following year, after about the first month, I completely dropped the habit. And then continued to not read the Bible much, if at all, the following year. Only the third year did I slowly begin to pick up the habit.
Other reasons included the effect of a close relationship on me that, while healing at the time, I gradually started putting this person in God's place more and more, and also in retrospect realized over time that it wasn't allowing me to grow and mature.
The bottom line from this part of the story is that, to walk through the things God has promised, I have to know Him for who He is, and not for who I used to tell myself He was. (And there is a huge difference between the two!) And that's one of the cool things about re-immersing myself -- lines like "I am the Lord who heals you" from Exodus 15:26 jump out. My lesson in moving forward is to maintain this discipline of connecting with God more, through His word but also through prayer, much like I've been doing -- and to not let someone else take His place. Simple, but not easy.
Postscript: This post ended up being a little different than I originally set out to write. As such, I will need to return for the rest of the passage at another time.