Okay, I will admit it. I am an acrophobia. It is somewhat strange, though. I can stand on the edge of a cliff in the mountains and look over a valley. I can sit on a rock and dangle my feet over a 500 foot waterfall. But I can’t go into a downtown high-rise hotel that is open without feeling vertigo. I can’t be in a glass elevator either outside or in curling into a fetal position and fighting the urge to suck my thumb. Seriously, I have a problem with these man-made heights.
One of the most amazing stories of the bible for me is God parting the Red Sea to save the Israelites. Rather you are a skeptic who believes the argument that it refers to the Reed Sea or a fundamentalist who believes in the English translation of the Red Sea doesn’t matter to me. The fact is that God saved the Israelites.
One of the things that always amazed me about that story is that after the path was made for them, they had a decision to make, go into the tunnel or face the armies of Egypt. I wonder how many of us today would have chosen the latter. Would we really have enough faith to take those initial steps between those walls of water? Would we become dizzy and faint at the immensity around us? Could we find the strength to put one foot in front of the other?
You know the walk through those towers of water is not much different than our walk of faith when you really think about it. The water is shallow around us when we begin. The deeper we go with God, the more scary things seem. Yet when, you consider the path and ignore the height of the walls, you realize that the path and the steps are just as easy at the bottom of the gorge as they were when you walked across the beach sand to the water.
I’ve only been to New York City once. But I remember walking down the street and being over taken by the heights of the buildings around me. It was almost like I was worried the whole time that something was about to fall on my head. Periodically I would find myself stumbling around and bumping into people because my gaze was no longer on the sidewalk in front of me, but on the immensity of the buildings. It’s a wonder I didn’t fall into the street and get run over by a taxi.
My point is simple. No matter what level you are in your walk with God, you can be over taken by the place that God has put you and begin to miss the direction he is taking you. You can begin to stumble and loose your balance. You forget your destination.
You also forget that you are being taken through this gorge to save you. There is an enemy on your tail and if you don’t get yourself to your destination, to the other side of the Sea, then your enemy can still over take you.
Then the Lord said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand over the sea so that the waters may flow back over the Egyptians and their chariots and horsemen.” Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and at daybreak the sea went back to its place. The Egyptians were fleeing toward it, and the Lord swept them into the sea. The water flowed back and covered the chariots and horsemen–the entire army of Pharaoh that had followed the Israelites into the sea. Not one of them survived. But the Israelites went through the sea on dry ground, with a wall of water on their right and on their left. That day the Lord saved Israel from the hands of the Egyptians, and Israel saw the Egyptians lying dead on the shore. And when the Israelites saw the great power the Lord displayed against the Egyptians, the people feared the Lord and put their trust in him and in Moses his servant. Exodus 14:26-31
