I’m a thinker. It’s one of those things that’s a gift and a curse. To make it easy on everyone at restaurants I order what I know best, lest I tell the waitress to come back to me. My friends joke about my over-analyzing tendencies. As mentioned in my last post, road trips can wear me out or give me life because of my mental processing.
Many empathize with me. Being a mental processor can be overwhelming. It can lead me to serve others well at my best. At my worst, however, it freezes me. When it’s my turn after everyone else has ordered, I’m still making up my mind because I want the best decision.
In my life, it looks like calculating risk and reward in situations where the Lord is calling me to be faithful and obedient. The hardest, most fruit-bearing lessons the past 4 & 1/2 years as a Christian were situations where the Lord leads me to step out in faith.
I’m reading Exodus right now, and I’ve been stuck on chapter 14 since last week. It’s when Moses leads the Israelites to encamp near the Red Sea, on their way to the wilderness. Pharaoh decides to take his best men and chariots to overtake the Israelites who fled from Egypt. As the Israelites saw the Egyptians marching towards them, they feared for their lives and cried out to the Lord.
Then grilled Moses. “Is it because there are no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness? What have you done to us in bringing us out of Egypt? Is not this what we said to you in Egypt: ‘Leave us alone that we may serve the Egyptians?’ For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians that to die in the wilderness.” Moses then assures them, “Fear not, stand firm, and see the salvation of the Lord, which He will work for you today. For the Egyptians whom you see today, you shall never see again. The LORD will fight for you, and you only have to be silent.”
Moses takes this to the God, and in verse 15 were two of the most convicting, applicable, and stirring words I’ve ever read as a Christian.
The LORD said to Moses, “Why do you cry to me? Tell the people of Israel to go forward.”
In other words, have faith, and trust me. I am faithful.
God is always doing 10,000 things in your life, and you may be aware of three of them.[1]
My tendency to attempt to add things up hardly works out when it comes to the good news of Jesus Christ. It just doesn’t make sense why an innocent would die for sinners. This was the Israelites’ situation as well. In the depths of their hearts they didn’t want the Lord, but their comfort. Yes, they cried out to the Lord, but then they showed their lack of faith in their verbal stoning of their God-appointed leader, Moses.
When we follow Jesus, there’s hardly ever practicality involved. Hey Peter, step out of that boat and walk to me on water! Practically, that just doesn’t make sense. Faith is certainly the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.[2] Therefore, my mental processing leads me to disbelief at times.
Why would you shut this door, God?
Why would you make this relationship this frustrating, Father?
If you want the best for me, why don’t give me what I want?
I love Tim Keller’s take on this. In his book, Prayer, he says, “God will either give us what we ask or give us what we would have asked if we knew everything He knows.” He cares about beyond what our eyes can see.
What the Israelites didn’t know was that God led them in the wilderness to avoid war with the Philistines.[3] They didn’t know that God would provide them meat and break out of nowhere in the wilderness. They didn’t remember the Lord’s provision thus far and all He did for Pharaoh to let them go. Sound familiar?
From my daily experiences as a Christian, I know how hard it is to trust Him, especially in situations that are sticky and seem like the end. Life gets confusing. Promising and hopeful relationships end. Jesus loving people get cancer. Father’s leave their families. It’s hard to move forward and trust the goodness of God in faith.
I need more faith.
I need more faith to support-raise for the job I feel called to rather than picking up a job only because of the security of the paycheck. I need more faith to move forward and not hang on to hope in people or ideas. Didn’t Peter need more faith to step out on the raging sea and walk to Jesus than staying in the security of their boat? Just as Moses needed more faith to proceed where the Lord was leading Him in the midst of deadly pursuit, trial, and criticism from His own people, we need more faith to trust the Lord and move forward in our own circumstances.
Reflect on where the Lord has taken you in your life. Just as He protects the Israelites, He protects us. Because of the security I have in Him through Jesus’ death–despite my doubts, fears, and anxieties–I am free to move forward.
“God is too good to be unkind and He is too wise to be mistaken. And when we cannot trace His hand, we must trust His heart.”[4]
[1] Quote, John Piper
[2] Hebrews 11:1
[3] Exodus 13:17-22
[4] Charles Spurgeon
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