I know, I know, what the heck sense does that make?! When you're in the middle of that fog that's the last thing you feel like doing. This is one of God's paradoxes that just is a mystery. It's a mystery because it is amazing, if you do it, what happens!
I remember last year when I began to understand that God was teaching me this and started to put it into action...it was transforming. The hurt was still there, the pain, the disappointment...healing was slow. But, deep in my soul it was all okay. I could get through the day. I survived. I guess that is that "peace that passes all understanding."
There's a song we sing at church "Put on the garments of praise in the spirit of heaviness." What truth there is to that statement.
I challenge you to be careful that your vision of yesterday doesn't become the vision of tomorrow. It could distort and blacken the light of today. You must guard your heart as the Psalmist says. I believe this can mean that you must guard the vision of your spirit. The dust and mud of your day-to-day life can cloud your spirit or the vision of your spirit. The enemy will blind you with vision of only the pain, failures, and sorrows of yesterday.
Remember the man who was blind from birth? Jesus spit on the ground, made mud, and placed the mud on the man's eyes (John 9: 1-14) Jesus, I believe, is saying to us, "I want to spit (put my very life) on your dirt and mud and place it on your eyes so that you may see. So that you may receive your vision."
The Israelites physically left Egypt but their spirits were still seeing "yesterday." God had a lot of work to do to help them change their vision.
God freed the Israelites only to lead them directly to the Red Sea. How many times has God directed you to "get out of the boat," go in a new direction, start a new phase in your life...only to bring you to your own "Red Sea?" You can't go back and yet there is this huge obstacle in front of you. God looped the Israelites around in a circle to set the stage to harden Pharaoh's heart (Exodus 14:1-4)
God didn't do this to destroy the Israelites although that is all they could see from their perspective (the Red Sea on one side, Pharaoh's army on the other). He wanted to show them his strength and might...and to bring Himself glory.
Who is your Pharaoh? What is your Red Sea?
The lesson:
1). Do what God tells you to do--though humanly speaking it may not make sense.
2). Learn how to resist peer pressure (Exodus 14:10-12).
3). Face down your fears and stand firm (Exodus 14:13).
4). Guard your lips (Exodus 14:14).
5). Exercise your authority (Exodus 14:15).
Victory may never come if all we do is talk to God about our "mountain" ("Red Sea"). We have to talk to the "mountain" about our God.
6). Act on your faith (Exodus 14:16).
7). Release wrong relationships (Exodus 14: 19-20).
"Lord, keep me from these bad relationships. Separate me from them."
8). Embrace your new experiences (Exodus 14:21-22).
The Israelites, I'm sure, were asking, "Lord, why not just pick us
up and put us over on the other side? Why make us walk through this new and strange place?"
9). Bring closure to the past (Exodus 14: 26-28).
This was probably Moses' greatest challenge because
he knew he had friends in amongst the army of Pharaoh. There, moving across the sea bottom, were people he grew up with and loved, and Moses knew he would lose them
God had to not only get Israel out of Egypt...He had to get Egypt out of Israel.
To listen to the entire message regarding the vision of your spirit and the story about how God changed the Israelites' vision...click on the MP3 player to the right just under my pic.
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