January 26

Exodus 13:17-15:21

Parting the Red Sea

This event is so famous that even people who have never read the Bible or stepped foot into a church know about it. God parts the Red Sea, allowing the Israelites to safely escape the Egyptians. I have heard and/or read this story more times than I can count. When I was reading it today, one thought stuck out in my mind:

People are incredibly forgetful and God is incredibly faithful.

The Israelites saw God's mighty power in Egypt, demonstrated by the plagues. With the Lord's help, Moses summoned plagues that could not be replicated or explained by Pharaoh's most skilled magicians. They witnessed Pharaoh's hard heart break down until he willingly let them all go. After they left, they were blessed enough to see the Lord in the form of a cloud by day and fire at night to guide their every move. It was abundantly obvious that a powerful, loving God was with them at all times.

But as I said before, people are forgetful.

The first sign of trouble was the approaching Egyptian army. The Israelites were trapped and frightened. Forgetting all that God had already done for them, they fell into despair and were convinced they were going to die. They told Moses it would have been better to stay in Egypt as slaves than to die in the desert.

Despite how forgetful people are, God never stops being faithful. God's faithfulness does not depend on our ability to remember. He delivered his people from their enemies in a way that only He could accomplish. No one else could have separated the waters of the Red Sea, making a path of dry ground between two enormous walls of water.

This is good news because here we are, thousands of years later and still just as forgetful as ever. We witness countless times where God delivers us from danger, and we still worry and fret when the first sign of trouble comes along. It would save all of us a whole lot of stress and worry if we focused on who God is: loving, powerful, and faithful. Pray that the next time you are struggling, that God will remind you of who is His and all He can accomplish. God is bigger than anything the world can throw at us and He loves us more than we could ever comprehend. Remembering this will enable us to stop worrying and start trusting in our faithful God, turning our doubt and despair into peace and joy!