The Red Sea

The Red Sea. We’ve all got one. Maybe it’s a potential divorce or a job loss. Maybe it’s a diagnosis that you have or one you’re afraid to face. Maybe it’s that ‘little’ secret no one else knows about. It’s hard to go through adulthood without facing a “Red Sea.” In Exodus 14, we read as God has delivered the Israelites out of the hands of Pharaoh only to have them facing a giant sea on one side and a furious Egyptian army on the other. All of their fears were realized in this one moment in time as they stared at an immovable Red Sea.

For me, that Red Sea is tied to financial security. It’s a fear that has always lingered deep down. The fear of not just being poor, which is a big one, but of being destitute. It’s this fear that has always driven so many of my decisions-jobs taken, houses bought, choices made. It’s fear that drove me to work 3 jobs while enrolled full-time at Baylor. It’s a GIANT Red Sea that haunts me whispering its lies in the middle of the night.

But like all Red Seas, we have a decision to make. We can either trust God to part the waters and walk THROUGH our fear, or we can become enslaved because of them.

I was reminded this weekend about the source of fear (hello Zach William’s “Fear is a Liar”). If fear is not from God, but Satan, then can it/should it be believed? If God IS who He says He is, then should HE be believed despite my fear? Is it possible then that Satan, the Father of Lies and source of my fear, is actually using that Red Sea to entrap me and enslave me? Is it possible that it is SATAN who DOES NOT WANT me to walk THROUGH my Red Sea because he knows what God has waiting for me on the other side?

I, as we all do, have a decision to make. Do we believe the one who has met my every need and speaks peace and joy and life into me, or the one who speaks lies and fears and death? As I stand at the shores of my Red Sea and begin to dip my toes in the water, it occurs to me that God must have a blessing that Satan does not want me to have waiting on the other side of this. A blessing of growing closer to Him as I grow in my faith. A blessing of real, everlasting freedom that can be felt from one who has been unknowingly enslaved in chains her entire life. A blessing to my family who will journey with me. A blessing to ALL I share it with of encouragement that they TOO can walk THROUGH their Red Sea-that the blessings, the truth of God’s character and nature are not limited to me and my family but waiting for you, too.

My encouragement to you is to identify your Red Sea. See the fear that holds you captive for what it is and whose it is. Claim a trust worthy’s God’s promises over YOUR Red Sea and believe that he CAN and WILL “do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us” as you walk THROUGH it.