Exodus
14:10–13 (RSV) 10 When Pharaoh drew near, the people of Israel lifted up
their eyes, and behold, the Egyptians were marching after them; and they were
in great fear. And the people of Israel cried out to the Lord; 11 and they said to Moses, “Is it because there are no
graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness? What have
you done to us, in bringing us out of Egypt? 12 Is not
this what we said to you in Egypt, ‘Let us alone and let us serve the
Egyptians’? For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to
die in the wilderness.” 13 And Moses said to the
people, “Fear not, stand firm, and see the salvation of the Lord, which he will
work for you today; for the Egyptians whom you see today, you shall never see
again.
NOTE: This is pretty
typical of God's children -- panic when things go badly. We see with our eyes
the physical world, also called the temporal. We don't see the spiritual world,
also called the eternal. We see with our physical eyes rather than eyes of faith,
and consequently we panic. I don't say that this is hard, that is, to see with
eyes of faith versus what is physically happening around us. But rather than
drawing conclusions of doom and gloom, as the Israelites do here in this
passage, why don't we start with prayer. And I don't mean just prayers of
"help," which always do happen when our world falls apart, but honest
discussions with God about our fears, our worries, our desires, and our
failures. A real discussion, not a laundry list of things we want. I think we
would respond differently if we learned to pray differently. Lord, help us to
have frank discussions with you and not grocery list recitations.
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