Your world can change in an instant. One day you’re comfortable like the Hebrew people were in Egypt, the next you are on the run. Pharaoh told Moses to go and leave Egypt, but as they left, he changed his mind, leading an army to chase them down and pull them back. The Israelites ran all the way to the banks of the Red Sea.
What are you running from? The Israelites were running from Egypt, from slavery, and for their lives. What’s chasing you?
A looming deadline?
Sickness? Death?
More money going out than coming in?
Depression? Anxiety? Bitterness? Envy?
Fear of change? Family troubles?
We all have something chasing us– maybe it makes you nervous just thinking about it. It’s like a horror movie: We run and run and run so fast so we don’t get caught, and then we run into a dead end. The Israelites are being cornered by the most powerful, brutal, and unrelenting military force on the globe and in Exodus 14 they have met their dead end.
It must have seemed like the end of the road, but this is exactly where God wanted them. God put them there on purpose: “Tell the Israelites to turn back and encamp near Pi Hahiroth, between Migdol and the sea (Ex. 14:2).
God brought them to the end of the road, pinned down between a sea and an army, to show that the only way forward is with God.
When our backs are against the wall, when we’re between a rock and a hard place, that may be exactly where God needs us to be because that is where we can see the mighty hand of God at work!