"As for you, lift up your staff and stretch out your hand over the sea and divide it, and the sons of Israel shall go through the midst of the sea on dry land." Exodus 14:16
There they stood staring at the waters in front of them. There was no way to go. They were fleeing for the lives from a military indignant in their anger and now pinning them against an impassable body of water.
Their answer came when God told Moses to raise his staff, the waters parted, and they were given dry land. The solution God gave them wasn't a footbridge. It wasn't the ability to walk on water. The answer to their problem was dry land.
Dry land. The very mention of it brings to mind pictures of dust or dead crops or desert or thirst or sweltering heat. Yet here God uses dry land to bring His people closer to the Promised Land.
Ever feel that way Beloved?
Living in the difficult and you pray and you cry out and you plead only to be given ... dry land.
"But God, I thought you'd give me abundant waters. This is dry land."
"God, I asked you to bring healing. This is dry land."
"Lord, I thought you'd make it all go away. This is dry land."
In faith and obedience, the Israelites took their steps onto dry land. They moved forward. And you know what was waiting for them on the other side? More dry land. But that which angrily pursued them was gone.
Their journey through the dry land brought many lessons, much growth and it eventually brought them home to a land of abundance.
Take courage my friends.
Our journey is long.
Our journey is hard.
We struggle, we scream, we cry.
The tired is etched on our face.
We hunger for fellowship.
We search for all that is good and true.
We long for the Living Water to quench our parched throats.
This is our today.
It is not our tomorrow.
We have a home waiting for us in a land of abundance, filled with all things good and surrounded in breathtaking glory where God Himself will wipe our tears.
But first, dry land.
