If it had not been the Lord Who was on our side...then the flood would have swept us away, the torrent would have gone over us. Then over us would have gone the raging waters. (Verses 4-5)
Thus says the Lord, Who makes a way in the sea, a path in the mighty waters..."Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I am doing a new thing. Now it springs forth. Do you perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert...for I give water in the wilderness, rivers in the desert, to give drink to My chosen people, the people whom I formed for Myself that they might declare My praise." Isaiah 43
It was very windy at the beach yesterday. When Vanessa and I took a late evening walk along its shores, the waves were rough and noisy, frothing with each curl and landing foamy very high on the sand. There were none of the ubiquitous surfers braving the dangerous conditions, for these waves could smack a person down into the sandy bottom and break him or sweep him out too far from shore. When our children were young and went to the beach with us in the summer, we told them if they become frightened by a wave that looks a little too big, they should sit down in the sand beneath and wait for the wave to pass over them. It saved them many a rough tumble. Waves that catch us turn us upside down and sideways, disorienting us. We lose our equilibrium as we fight to right ourselves and breathe. The ocean is a dangerous place. I've heard the sirens as they blare on Pacific Coast Highway, racing toward a swimmer pulled unconscious from the raging water or a rip tide. I've seen the lifeless body of a surfer as lifeguards bend over him performing CPR one last hopeful time. We can be overcome and swept away.
Let's say we are stuck in an overwhelming flood today. Perhaps not actual waters, but the torrents of problems that drown us. You know what I mean: divorce, addiction, financial crisis, failing health, children who've wandered into harm's way. It feels so overwhelming that we just want to lie down and quit. Medicate ourselves because there's nothing else we can do. We can't stem the mighty flood nor know when it will relent. Life drowning us in the murky tumult that tosses us about and keeps us from catching our breath. If we aren't saved, we'll drown. If the Lord is not on our side, we're sure to perish.
I honestly don't know how people survive this world without my God. It's like a car saying to the Ford Motor Corporation: "Thank so much for making me a Mustang. Now I'm going to drive myself. I don't want a person telling me where to go or what to do. I am, after all, a muscle car." The Ford won't get very far on its own power as it tries to function in a way for which it wasn't designed. The one who formed it knows how it works best. No, I'm not a car. I have a bit more free will than an object, but the sense that I've been designed with purpose, placed in this world to go somewhere and do something is hard to escape. The knowledge that we have a reason for being is intrinsic in all of us. That God stamped us with His image from the beginning is clear. God wants to be with us. On our side. It's His desire to help us navigate the sunshine and the storm. Going it alone is as ridiculous as the car thinking it'll just drive itself, thank you very much. Uh, where? why? when? Minus God we shoot in the dark. When life rolls in like a flood, and it does for everyone some time or other, what keeps us afloat if God isn't making a way through it for us?
Moses and the Israelites watched the Red Sea wall up on either side as they walked through on dry land. Noah rocked the teaming flood safely in a boat. Jonah was burped onto shore from the belly of a huge fish. Daniel sat in a lion's den while the stupefied lions cowered in a corner unable somehow to eat their prey. Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego were thrown into a furnace blast that killed the one who opened the doors to throw them in, yet the hairs on their heads were not singed. And just so we never forget that God never leaves us or forsakes us, Jesus came to earth to be overwhelmed in the flood so that we never, ever have to. He became the Way through every downpour. Jesus slept in the boat when a storm at sea scared His disciples nearly to death. They woke Him. "Don't You care that we are dying?" Screaming over the crashing waves and pounding rain. "What are you so afraid of?" Jesus yelled back. "You have so little faith!" Then Jesus got up from his nap and told the winds and rain to stop. And there was calm. But the winds and rain weren't the real problem in the mind of Jesus. It was the fear of them that disabled his good friends. If we know that God is one our side, making a way where there is no way, doing a new thing never before done just to save us from the storms, we have all we need. He makes a way because He formed us and loves us. If you don't believe it, just look at the cross.
Thus says the Lord, Who makes a way in the sea, a path in the mighty waters..."Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I am doing a new thing. Now it springs forth. Do you perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert...for I give water in the wilderness, rivers in the desert, to give drink to My chosen people, the people whom I formed for Myself that they might declare My praise." Isaiah 43
It was very windy at the beach yesterday. When Vanessa and I took a late evening walk along its shores, the waves were rough and noisy, frothing with each curl and landing foamy very high on the sand. There were none of the ubiquitous surfers braving the dangerous conditions, for these waves could smack a person down into the sandy bottom and break him or sweep him out too far from shore. When our children were young and went to the beach with us in the summer, we told them if they become frightened by a wave that looks a little too big, they should sit down in the sand beneath and wait for the wave to pass over them. It saved them many a rough tumble. Waves that catch us turn us upside down and sideways, disorienting us. We lose our equilibrium as we fight to right ourselves and breathe. The ocean is a dangerous place. I've heard the sirens as they blare on Pacific Coast Highway, racing toward a swimmer pulled unconscious from the raging water or a rip tide. I've seen the lifeless body of a surfer as lifeguards bend over him performing CPR one last hopeful time. We can be overcome and swept away.
Let's say we are stuck in an overwhelming flood today. Perhaps not actual waters, but the torrents of problems that drown us. You know what I mean: divorce, addiction, financial crisis, failing health, children who've wandered into harm's way. It feels so overwhelming that we just want to lie down and quit. Medicate ourselves because there's nothing else we can do. We can't stem the mighty flood nor know when it will relent. Life drowning us in the murky tumult that tosses us about and keeps us from catching our breath. If we aren't saved, we'll drown. If the Lord is not on our side, we're sure to perish.
I honestly don't know how people survive this world without my God. It's like a car saying to the Ford Motor Corporation: "Thank so much for making me a Mustang. Now I'm going to drive myself. I don't want a person telling me where to go or what to do. I am, after all, a muscle car." The Ford won't get very far on its own power as it tries to function in a way for which it wasn't designed. The one who formed it knows how it works best. No, I'm not a car. I have a bit more free will than an object, but the sense that I've been designed with purpose, placed in this world to go somewhere and do something is hard to escape. The knowledge that we have a reason for being is intrinsic in all of us. That God stamped us with His image from the beginning is clear. God wants to be with us. On our side. It's His desire to help us navigate the sunshine and the storm. Going it alone is as ridiculous as the car thinking it'll just drive itself, thank you very much. Uh, where? why? when? Minus God we shoot in the dark. When life rolls in like a flood, and it does for everyone some time or other, what keeps us afloat if God isn't making a way through it for us?
Moses and the Israelites watched the Red Sea wall up on either side as they walked through on dry land. Noah rocked the teaming flood safely in a boat. Jonah was burped onto shore from the belly of a huge fish. Daniel sat in a lion's den while the stupefied lions cowered in a corner unable somehow to eat their prey. Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego were thrown into a furnace blast that killed the one who opened the doors to throw them in, yet the hairs on their heads were not singed. And just so we never forget that God never leaves us or forsakes us, Jesus came to earth to be overwhelmed in the flood so that we never, ever have to. He became the Way through every downpour. Jesus slept in the boat when a storm at sea scared His disciples nearly to death. They woke Him. "Don't You care that we are dying?" Screaming over the crashing waves and pounding rain. "What are you so afraid of?" Jesus yelled back. "You have so little faith!" Then Jesus got up from his nap and told the winds and rain to stop. And there was calm. But the winds and rain weren't the real problem in the mind of Jesus. It was the fear of them that disabled his good friends. If we know that God is one our side, making a way where there is no way, doing a new thing never before done just to save us from the storms, we have all we need. He makes a way because He formed us and loves us. If you don't believe it, just look at the cross.
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