Responding To Your Red Sea Moment

The sons of Israel looked, and behold, the Egyptians were marching after them, and they became very frightened; so the sons of Israel cried out to the Lord.
–Exodus 14:10

The past two weeks, we have been looking at what I am calling our “Red Sea moments.” These are the difficult situations we encounter throughout our lives when we do not know what to do. Like the Israelites standing in front of the Red Sea, we are facing a seemingly impossible situation and need God’s supernatural intervention.

So far, we have seen God miraculously deliver the Israelites from Egypt and guide them as they set out on their journey. What happens next? Let’s pick up the story:

When the king of Egypt was told that the people had fled, Pharaoh and his servants had a change of heart toward the people, and they said, “What is this we have done, that we have let Israel go from serving us?” So he made his chariot ready and took his people with him; and he took six hundred select chariots, and all the other chariots of Egypt with officers over all of them. The Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and he chased after the sons of Israel. (Exodus 14:5-8)

According to God’s plan, the Israelites were trapped. The mighty Egyptian army chased them, and the Israelites ran along the path God led them–only to end up stuck at the Red Sea. There was no way out. The Red Sea was in front of them, and the Egyptians were pursuing them from behind. They could either go forward and be drowned in the Red Sea, or they could turn back and be slaughtered by the Egyptian army.

That’s quite a choice, isn’t it? It’s what we call a predicament. According to Merriam-Webster, a predicament is “a difficult, perplexing, or trying situation.” I recently heard a better definition: a predicament is when an attorney who specializes in medical malpractice suits discovers he needs major surgery. That is a predicament!

That is exactly the kind of predicament that the Israelites were facing. What were they going to do? In this chapter, we will look at Israel’s response as we consider how we, too, can respond to our Red Sea moments. When God sovereignly allows something into our lives, it is up to us to decide how we will respond.

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Today’s devotion is excerpted from “Seizing Your Red Sea Moment” by Dr. Robert Jeffress, 2005.

Merriam-Webster, s.v. “predicament,” http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/predicament.

Charles Swindoll, “Moses: A Man Of Selfless Devotion” (Nashville: Word Publishing, 1999), 211.

Scripture quotations are taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE®, Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.