God moves in a mysterious way, his wonders to perform;
He plants his footsteps in the sea
and rides upon the storm...
Have you ever felt like you were on a circuitous path in life? Maybe you've given up much to move somewhere you were convinced God led you to go, and yet after some time earnestly seeking to follow God there, you ended up having to go right back to the place from which you came, or somewhere else you never dreamed or wanted to be, feeling like you had little or nothing to show for your sacrifice and upheaval? Or maybe you've taken the right job, followed the Lord's leading into the right ministry, gotten into the right relationship, or pursued that neighbour with the gospel as you believed the Holy Spirit was clearly pushing you to do, only to have no success, to see doors closed, to feel like a failure? We are often so quick, in these circumstances, to wonder when we misunderstood God's leading, where we fell into sin that we're being disciplined for, or if God really cares for us at all.
Israel understood this. I've always thought of their journey out of Egypt toward the Promised Land as a long, but continuous, path which only ended up as 40 years of wandering because of their sin of unbelief. But in reading Exodus 13-17 this time around, I was struck by those words in Ex. 14:2 where the LORD tells the people to TURN BACK. They were headed out of Egypt in victory as the LORD had commanded, and yet they suddenly find themselves going backwards in the direction of Egypt again, where God places them squarely between the Egyptians and an uncrossable sea. Under such circumstances, it really is not surprising that the Israelites respond by complaining to God that he had only rescued them from Egypt in order to kill them (14:10-12). It may not be the godly, faith-filled response of Moses (14:13-14), but it is often our natural human response. There have been times in our life when everything appears to be going "according to plan" ("whose plan?" is an entirely different question!), but there have been other times when we think God is clearly leading us in one direction, and yet it ends in apparent failure, or in years of wandering in the wilderness (see Ex. 16, 17) when we begin to wonder if we somehow fell off God's track. And it is easy in those times to question God, to question his faithfulness, to question his sovereignty, to question his goodness.
As Alec Motyer
points out, Christians can often simplistically attribute times of failure and suffering either to direct attacks of Satan, as if he's somehow bypassed God, or to our failing to follow God's will for our lives, living outside his purposes. But while Satan does attack (just as Pharaoh was on the attack), and believers do sin (the 40 years in the wilderness was discipline), it is clear here that Israel was led by the clear will of the LORD into wandering, hunger, thirst and battle. They didn't just come to the Red Sea and find Pharaoh behind them because they hadn't moved fast enough, or because Pharaoh overcame God's plan. They didn't head into the wilderness to encounter deadly hunger and thirst because they failed to praise God (see the song of Ex. 15 which is immediately followed by the desert trips in Ex. 16 and 17 where they almost die of thirst). They were led there by the pillar and the cloud--easy to miss because of chapter divisions--and the clear commands of God. And it is God who hardens Pharaoh's heart. The Israelites ended up by the Red Sea and in the wildernesses of Shur and Sin BECAUSE they were right in the centre of God's will and guidance.Can we explain God's ways with Israel? Not much more than we can explain the mysteries of God's ways with us, which are sometimes deeply perplexing. The text of Exodus tells us that this was part of God's pre-ordained journey to the Promised Land and that his purpose involved the defeat of Pharaoh and the ability of the Egyptians (14:4) and the Israelites (14:30,31) to know that he is the LORD. But why he did it this way, we won't fully comprehend in this life. How much less then can we understand many of the directions our pilgimage to the Promised Land takes us, when we do not have the benefit of hindsight. One day we will see the bodies of our enemies on the shore (14:30), but when we are sitting between the rock and the hard place, the enemy in full pursuit, God's ways seem confusing and shrouded in darkness. When we are in the midst of the wilderness that seems to be way off the route to the land of milk and honey, we are often more aware of our thirst than of the fact that it is the LORD who led us there. At the same time as we decry the "prosperity gospel", far too often we live as if following God will bring us success and ease, and are confused when the path is hard and makes no sense to us. Will we respond like Israel, crying out in confusion, grumbling and anger, and ultimately trying to get to the Promised Land by our own devices? Or will we step forward (or backward!) in faith that the God who guided Israel through much wandering to the land of glory by the pillar and the cloud is the same God who promises both great hardship in this life and also that he will never leave or forsake his people in their circuitous journey toward heaven, where our real citizenship is.
We must remember that Jesus knew this life in the wilderness, too. God's will for him involved not grasping the equality with God that was clearly and rightfully his, leaving the comforts of heaven to live out a human existence with all its trials and tears on earth. The Spirit threw him into the wilderness (Matt. 4) just as he did Israel, and as he often does us. God had a specifically appointed time for a violent and gruesome death for crimes Jesus didn't commit, and it made absolutely no sense to the disciples around him--he was supposed to be the victorious Messiah and yet he was headed toward the cross, something so anguishing that even Jesus prayed that the cup be removed. And yet in all of this, he perfectly submitted himself to the perfect and mysterious will of the Father, that he might take the penalty for all our distrust and angry questions, that he might grant to us a record of perfect submission, that his (and our) ultimate enemy might be defeated and that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters to inherit the Promised Land and the glory of God.
Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take; the clouds ye so much dread are big with mercy and shall break with blessings on your head... Blind unbelief is sure to err, and scan his work in vain. God is his own interpreter and he will make it plain.
-William Cowper*
*And just in case you think these words were penned by some old guy oblivious to the anguish of living in the hard, mysterious path of Almighty God, read up on Cowper. That's a perplexing life!
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