"I've got this Lord."
and walked away...
You see, the more I read the book of Exodus I don't just see myself as an Israelite needing rescue from bondage, I see myself as Pharaoh doing the enslaving.
I'm not just a captive in need of freedom, I am a captor in need of being overthrown and swallowed by the sea.
There's a line in Exodus I can't ignore...
Then the Lord said to Moses, "Now you shall see what I will do to Pharaoh; for under compulsion he will let them go, and under compulsion he will drive them out of his land..."
for under compulsion
God knew that Pharaoh wouldn't do anything until he was losing everything, and just like Pharaoh, we too often won't budge until we are under compulsion to do so...
And that explains how 2008, a year of death and divorce, was the very same year of my exodus.
It was the year I got to see how God's grace works on a grand scale...His outstretched arms parting waters and walking me to freedom, while simultaneously, causing the waters to crash down and kill the pharaoh I had become.
I would soon see that through death, His plan was to give me life.
I've written before about how fear entangled and intwined my life in ways that my main goal was to find security. And when one is searching for security, that means their identity is in question as well.
I believe the two are inextricably linked.
Therefore, I found myself looking for both in all the ways life can offer it. And for a 20 year old, that meant marriage. I, of course didn't realize this about myself. I traipsed around covering my insecurities with fierce independence, false confidence, and seemingly knowing exactly what I wanted in life.
Unfortunately, all of that was a facade.
My heart was hardened to the fact that I was lost, scared, and knew little about anything.
Then the Lord said to Moses,
"Pharaoh's heart is stubborn; he refuses to let the people go."
"Pharaoh's heart is stubborn; he refuses to let the people go."
As humans we all face the question of where our security comes from.
Sometimes, life lets us slide for years before we face the question, but the knock on our door will come.
Personally, I believe the knock comes in the form of death. Death exposes our vulnerability, and we realize we are sitting ducks.
When death comes into our life through abandonment, disease, divorce, betrayal, or in any of its myriad of forms, our eyes are opened to the fact that we are vulnerable, and this vulnerability becomes a plague to us...and if we aren't careful, this vulnerability can lead to our own death if we let it.
I don't know when death first knocked on your door...for Adam and Eve, it was when the serpent showed up convincing them to not trust God.
For me, it was when I was 9, when cancer entered my life.
My mom's cancer diagnosis stood at the door telling me, taunting me that there were no guarantees in life, and it shook me so deep that I scrambled for years trying to find a guarantee, trying to find my now lost security.
Being the sensitive young one I was, that news formulated a chasm inside of me that convinced me life was just a bunch of quicksand.
Death may not enter our realm until adulthood. Death of a loved one, death of dreams, jobs, marriages, innocence, or even our own, but death will eventually knock on all our doors and we will have to face the inevitable questions death brings...
Am I OK?
Am I going to be okay if all of "this" goes away?
WHO am I if this all goes away?
How can I possibly be this vulnerable in life?
When those questions were posed deep within my soul...was I going to be okay? My answer was a resounding NO!
Even with all the support and truth that surrounded me, I would have to discover a new answer, the true answer on my own. By God's grace, I had people pouring into me, people who already stood on the other side of the bank of the Red Sea. But, just as we all have to, I needed to see God's outstretch arm part those waters in my own life and watch Him lead me across on dry land.
Unfortunately, first, I would have to find myself in Egypt.
Because I could not handle this new realization that my life could completely fall apart in a moment, fear gripped me, so I tried to control as many outcomes as possible, which led to me becoming a perfectionist and a linear, black and white thinker.
Because I couldn't fathom a life of unknowns, I decided to create as many "knowns" in my life as possible. I became a mitigator, a planner, an anxious anticipator who allowed little emotion to shake her. No more spontaneity, no more uncontrolled, unplanned, excitement-filled life events.
I was someone who knew the definitions of trust and grace, but never understood them...they were foreign to me.
Therefore, my walk turned into shakily balancing the legalistic tightrope of how to map out a life plan where no hurt would be involved. Going from point A to point B in the most "I know exactly what is going to happen here" kind of way was my long term goal, which by proxy became my daily goal.
FEAR had taken hold and was grabbing my life by its throat.
Laughter, love, joy, rest, mountain tops that take your breath away, valleys that cause you to hold on tight, and everything in between that make you want to live, were absent.
I can remember being beckoned by the Holy Spirit during all of it to turn, but I was stubborn and too afraid. I refused to let my fear go and to trust in something that I saw as risky and unknown...even if that was this God I claimed to know and love.
Pharaoh's heart was hardened, and he did not listen to them.
So I would forge on in all I thought I knew: how to avoid the quicksands of life.
I have vivid memories of me crying, knowing that I was headed in a wrong direction, but changing courses seemed way too big and too frightening to even fathom doing so.
What would that mean for my life?
Who would I even be if this planned out existence didn't come to fruition?
Looking back, I can see these were moments where God was prompting me to turn and engage Him, to let all of that fear and insecurity go, and come trust Him, but I always had a reason not to.
I always chose my plan over His.
Pharaoh turned and went into his house with no concern...
With my marriage and my mom, years of anguish and angst were had. Moments were there where all I could do was turn to God, I would beg for mercy and relief, and just as Pharaoh had done, I'd make bargains with God and even agree to let things go for a short while, but then I'd grab back hold because I seemed to know no different. The known seemed better than the unknown.
My heart was hardened, so I remained in Egypt being both captor and captive.
And then 2008....for under compulsion, he will let them go.
When DEATH knocked again and took all that contained my security and identity...
under compulsion, I decided to let them go.
My safe place of finding unconditional love in my mom and then my marriage where I had seen myself as chosen and had given me an identity were now both gone.
Gone.
In a moment.
And that night, there was a cry from my Egypt, RISE UP AND GET OUT!
As I was curled on my bedroom floor, with everything inside of me screaming, I declared,
It's time to leave Egypt and go worship the Lord.
With steely resolve, I exclaimed, "GET OUT! All that is within me that is toxic and wasting my life away. Get out. No more.
No more!
I begged God, whatever it takes, right this ship, swing the pendulum back, and right this ship because I can't do this anymore, and I need You.
I need You.
I turned to God and said I need You to come SAVE me.
And He did. On January 1, 2009, God walked me out.
"for with a powerful hand the Lord brought you out of Egypt."
In the story of my exodus, He parted the waters and brought me out from an Egypt I'd spent over 20 years in. And, just like the Israelites, as I was walking out, in those dark nights, feeling alone, confused, and petrified of what life was like in front of me, fear would set in and I would look back. I would see and feel Pharaoh chasing me once more.
I would begin to question...question if God could be trusted.
What have I done?
What if Lord?
How can I know Lord?
This hurts too much Lord!
Leaving Egypt is one thing, but facing the unknown of what is to come is another. The fear of the unknown can be powerful enough to make us choose to go back...so as God draws His people out, His mighty hand kills the most powerful stronghold those Israelites had...Pharaoh and his entire army.
As they stood still, God parted the waters for them.
Do not fear! Stand by and see the salvation of the Lord which He will accomplish for you today;
for the Egyptians whom you have seen today, you will never see again.
The Lord will fight for you; you need only to keep still.
Though terrifying for the Israelites, God had Pharaoh and his entire army chase in after them, in order for the Israelites to watch God utterly destroy the Egyptians.
As for Me, behold, I will harden the hearts of the Egyptians so that they will go in after them and I will be honored through Pharaoh and all his army...then the Egyptians will know that I am the Lord...then the Egyptians took up the pursuit...the Lord looked down on the army of the Egyptians...Stretch out your hand over the sea...and the sea returned...and the Lord overthrew the Egyptians in the midst of the sea...not even one remained.
But the sons of Israel walked on dry land through the midst of the sea...thus the Lord saved Israel that day from the hand of the Egyptians, and Israel saw the Egyptians dead on the seashore.
And as I stood still, God parted the waters for me.
And though terrifying, God had all that was pharaoh inside of me chase me down, so I would watch Him send the waters crashing down to swallow it up.
And just as ancient Egypt has never recovered to its former glory, the Egypt inside of us won't either.
Because when God sets us free, we are free.
God knew what it was going to take to get His people out. He wasn't coming to give them temporary relief, He wasn't coming to give them a simple story of entitled rescue, because that doesn't truly deliver them from anything.
God came to set His people free, so they would know without a doubt that He is the Lord. He is the Lord that sees their affliction and comes down to deliver them.
Do you feel like you are in Egypt? Maybe the pharaoh inside of you is in need of being swallowed up and destroyed once and for all?
God knit you together in your mother's womb, and you are fearfully and wonderfully made by His very hands.
Don't for a second think that He has forgotten you or that He's not willing to come and rescue, no matter how long you've been in slavery.
No guilt or shame, no indifference or stubborn will, no anger or hurt, no darkness is too far or too deep, that God will not come and with His outstretched arm deliver you.
"Now the time that the sons of Israel lived in Egypt was four hundred and thirty years. and at the end of the hosts of the Lord went out from the land of Egypt. It is a night to be observed for the Lord for having brought them out from the land of Egypt...
"Remember this day in which you went out from Egypt, from the house of slavery; for by a powerful hand the Lord brought you out from this place...it shall be when the Lord brings you to the land of the Canaanite...a land flowing with milk and honey...
Are you in Egypt?
Are you a slave to fear? shame? anxiety? substance? rejection? loneliness?
Are you Pharaoh holding yourself captive?
I bet God has been sending you signs and wonders, and at times, you are tempted to trust His power, and you are tempted to let it all go...
Or maybe, something so big has happened that you find yourself on the floor begging God to carry you out, with His outstretched arm, and you're telling Him that you're ready for Pharaoh to be killed, and you're ready to head towards the unknown, towards whatever is ahead that He has prepared, even if it includes a long journey of walking with Him while He sifts and molds us into a free people.
Then the Lord said to Moses,
"Why are you crying out to Me?
Tell the sons of Israel to GO FORWARD.
Tell the sons of Israel to GO FORWARD.
As for you, lift up your staff and stretch out your hand over the sea and divide it,
and the sons of Israel shall go through the midst of the sea on dry land.
There seems to be nothing else He wants more than for us to know that He is the Lord, and the God of the universe is waiting to strike Egypt with all His miracles to show you how His grace parts waters.
May 2017 be a year of days we get up and GO FORWARD.
Life doesn't give us security and we can't find our identity in anything here, but during a great exodus, I found both.
I am the Lord...I will deliver you...I will redeem you...
I will take you for My people, and I will be your God
The journey isn't easy. It isn't predictable.
It can't be mitigated, anticipated, or controlled.
But you are guaranteed that across the waters there will be manna, something you've never had before, you will experience God's constant presence guiding you by day and by night, you will stand still and watch Him fight for you, and there will be the Rock for you to stand on...
You will see miracles, and you will stand on a shore watching God save you, and you will never be the same again.
"Therefore if anyone is of Christ, he is a new creature, the old things passed away; behold, new things have come." 2 Cor. 5:17
"Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone...and give you a heart of flesh." Ez. 36:26
In Him,
Shelly
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