Paths

During my time in Peru I have had the privilege to ride many buses for extended periods of time. It seems that on the bus is where I would do more thinking than normal. See the bus ride can be anywhere from 5 hrs to 24 hrs. They show movies and such but there’s only so many movies one can watch in Spanish…in a row. So I think. A lot.

This one particular trip I was in and out of sleep the majority of the time. This trip was only 13 hours and it was over night. I woke up at one point and it felt like we weren’t on a road anymore so I looked out the window and sure enough, we weren’t. Apparently there was construction all throughout the drive back and that meant sometimes our bus would go a little off-road (good thing it was a mountain bus). As I looked out the window this time, to the right of the bus was a river. It was a strong, fast river with lots of huge rocks and it seemed to be a little closer than is comfortable. It was the middle of the night so the moon was out and it was easy to see because it was quite clear. The way the moonlight hit the river and the rocks was just unbelievably beautiful! I wish I could say I stayed awake and just took it all in, but I fell right back asleep.

When I woke up again, I hadn’t forgotten the glorious beauty I had seen and I began to think more about it all. See there seems to be many times that I think the road is the best way to go- most practical and expected. But when we trust God completely and fully He sometimes takes us on a different road. A road less expected due to construction but this time the construction is within us. Usually these are the paths that are the most beautiful and just simply glorious where everything about us changes. The way we think and see the world may never be the same. These paths may be a little scary but worth it to see how His light shines along the way.

This got me thinking about the story of Moses and the parting of the Red Sea in Exodus 14. The Lord tells Moses what is going to happen and most importantly why. “And once again I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and he will chase after you. I have planned this in order to display my glory through Pharaoh and his whole army.” (v 4)

Moses does as the Lord told him and takes the Israelites on a little journey. The Israelites realize the Egyptians are chasing them in order to kill them so they freak out a little and start questioning everything they know (vs 10-12). Moses assures them, “The Lord himself will fight for you. Just stay calm.” (v 14) And He did. “… the people of Israel had walked through the middle of the sea on dry ground, as the water stood up like a wall on both sides. That is how the Lord rescued Israel from the hand of the Egyptians that day. And the Israelites saw the bodies of the Egyptians washed up on the seashore. When the people of Israel saw the mighty power that the Lord had unleashed against the Egyptians, they were filled with awe before him. They put their faith in the Lord...”(vs 29-31)

I highly doubt the Israelites expected to walk through the Red Sea that day. That wasn’t the typical way to go but God had a different plan, one that would glorify Him and teach the Israelites (us) a lot along the way.

“Show me the right path, O Lord; point out the road for me to follow.” Psalms 25:4