Psalm 114:5 What ailed thee, O thou sea, that thou fleddest? Thou Jordan, that thou waste driven back?
We recently finished summer camp! After going full bore all day every day during the summer camping season, it is quite the change in pace when camp is over. Nonetheless it is a busy week as we assess the summer and put last minute touches on our plans for the fall.
I recently reminded those of us who live here that if we feel like we are either heroes or martyrs when we look back at the summer, we are totally missing the point. We are missing God. If I see myself as a hero this summer or if I see myself as a martyr in the work I did this summer, then obviously I am missing someone’s presence, God’s presence.
When Israel came out of Egypt, they walked out like they owned the place. The Egyptians basically begged and bribed them to leave. When they walked out of Egypt, the Red Sea parted for them and seemed to lay down a red carpet for their departure. Food was provided from Heaven and water from a rock. Yet, the Red Sea did not flee at the presence of this ragtag band of slaves. It was fleeing the presence of God.
Psalm 114 says, “When Israel went out of Egypt, the house of Jacob from a people of strange language; Judah was his sanctuary, and Israel his dominion.” Israel was neither a martyr nor a hero. There were no martyrs in Egypt. There was only a loser, and that was Pharaoh. There was only one hero in Egypt, and that was God. It certainly wasn’t the many little gods that Egypt had worshipped. In fact, God went after those gods, turning the god of the Nile, for instance, into blood. God both parted the water and provided water. He parted water where it was in the way and provided water where there wasn’t any water.
The Bible goes on, “The sea saw it, and fled: Jordan was driven back. The mountains skipped like rams, and the little hills like lambs.” What made nature itself tremble? Verse 5 says, “What ailed thee, O thou sea, that thou fleddest? thou Jordan, that thou wast driven back?” What made the Red Sea and later the Jordan part? Was it the family of Jacob? Verse 7 gives the answer, “Tremble, thou earth, at the presence… of the God of Jacob; which turned the rock into a standing water, the flint into a fountain of waters.”
God sets the story straight. When we look back at our day, our week, our summer, our lives and we feel like a martyr, like we have been wronged, or if we feel like a hero, like God couldn’t survive without us, we are missing the point!
I may not recognize everyone that I should recognize or thank everyone that I am obliged to thank, but God never forgets. Unlike me, God will never be in debt to somebody else. God is the One Who made a way. He is the One Who made provision. God is the One Who made Israel and made us.
So, the seas are not parting for you; they are parting for God. Follow Him. It reminds me of the cartoon where all of a sudden a dozen cats are fleeing in terror for their lives from a mouse. The mouse thinks to himself, “Wow, I am a pretty big guy.” Then he sees a shadow looming over his head. He looks straight up and there is a bulldog. He didn’t realize the dog was there, but the cats weren’t fleeing at his presence; they were fleeing at the presence of that ferocious canine. Likewise, the seas don’t part for you. They part for God.
Today, don’t leave God out of your story because when you do, you don’t see things straight. God sets the story straight. The seas part for Him. Follow Him.