Summer at the
Shore:
Between
the Egyptians and the Deep Blue Sea
What’s wrong with these pictures? Peter flailing in the water, the children of Israel gazing out longingly across a sea that has not yet parted. I suspect that you wanted to hear a little more of these stories, to resolve the dissonance, but hang in there with me on the brink of the miracles that have not yet happened.
Pharaoh and his chariots have overtaken Moses and his followers as they are camping on the beach. In front of the Israelites lies the sea. And they have no boats. Behind them in six hundred chariots are Pharaoh and his army. They are afraid and desperate. Stuck between the Egyptians and the Deep Blue Sea.
And so is Peter. He has seen
Jesus stepping lightly across the waves. He
has had the great desire to step there himself, and he has heard Jesus call.
He has taken one step and then another.
But now he is up to his neck in the waves, flailing, fearful.
Yelling for help.
No doubt you have had similar feelings, if not similar situations.
Times when you felt trapped, vulnerable, defeated.
You’ve stepped out in faith, but along the way things have gotten a
little sticky. You’ve been hemmed in by insurmountable problems,
uncooperative people, or unfavorable circumstances. And there is no way out.
Nowhere to go. No help in sight. We
stopped the Bible readings before the miracle today because I want you to think
about this moment just before the miracle.
Before the help comes. You
see, the problem with the Bible is that we know some of the stories too well.
We know that God is going to
open up a pathway in the Red Sea, but the children of Israel do not.
We know that Jesus is going to reach down and pull Peter up and then
calm the storm. Peter does not.
So what’s wrong with these pictures?
Not a thing. The Israelites
and Peter are right where God wants them. And
so are we in the midst of our own dilemmas.
When we understand this, we begin to grasp an important truth about our
relationship with God. We do not
know the end of our own story, but we are called to trust God in the midst of
deep despair or great trauma or intense confusion.
When
I say that we are right where God wants us, I don’t mean that God enjoys
watching us suffer. What I mean is
that God wants our trust. God wants
us to experience the power of God. As
long as we think that we can “handle” everything, we are not likely to see
God’s hand in the midst of our daily lives.
But maneuver us into an impossible situation, and watch us squirm!
At these crisis points we are vulnerable and open to the possibility of
miracles, of God working in our lives.
In the Chinese language, the word crisis is made up of two characters.
One character means “danger” and the other means “opportunity.”
A crisis is just that! Both
danger and opportunity. And we all
face many such crises in our lives. Times
when we are pressed to the wall and forced to decide, yet have no idea what to
decide. When we are forced to move
ahead when the trail looks bleak at best and when it leads to the edge of a
cliff at worst. When we are more
than a little convinced that the light at the end of the tunnel is a freight
train barreling our way. In
spiritual terms, the opportunity within such moments is that we will learn to
trust God. The danger is that we
will turn away from God in fear or discouragement.
I often think about something that I once read about Alexander the Great
and his troops as they traveled through the world in their conquests.
Maps were limited, and very often Alexander and his men found themselves
walking right off the map. They
were creating the maps as they went! They
knew where they had been, but not where they were going, and that is a great
analogy for life. We know where we
have been, but not where we are going. And
that’s why we need to learn to trust God, because God knows everything.
Have you ever felt caught between the Egyptians and the Deep Blue Sea?
Have you experienced God’s power in that moment?
I have. One of those times
was when Ed and I were beginning to talk about leaving our ministry in Alaska.
Living in Alaska had been a “best of times, worst of times”
experience. It was dramatic from
beginning to end. From moose in our
front yard to glaciers within driving distance, to several feet of snow on our
roof, to intense conflict in the congregation, the Alaska experience was
memorable. It was our first
ministry together, which added interest to the learning curve as well.
Add to that the chemical reaction in our bodies that occurred with the
huge changes in light and dark, and we began to ask the question of whether to
stay or leave. We had just bought a house a year earlier, and that created a
very practical dilemma. The bottom
had dropped out of the oil market and real estate prices followed the slide,
which made it feasible for the first time in our marriage for us to buy a house.
But after we bought the house, the market continued to find new bottoms,
and people were leaving Alaska in droves. There
were houses for sale on every block. It
was not unusual for people to simply leave their house behind and suffer the
consequences. Those who stuck it
out and waited for a buyer had to pay the difference between market value and
the balance of their loan. We went
to our real estate agent, who had become a good friend.
Virginia told us two things: 1)
there was no way we were going to sell our house in that market and 2) if we
somehow managed to find a buyer, there was no way we could get out of it what we
owed. And that was the good news!
The bad news was that we had no financial reserves.
But, in spite of the prognosis, we decided to set the asking price at the
value of our mortgage, with the buyer paying all closing costs (which was
unheard of in that market).
We were trying to understand what God was doing in our life at that time.
We asked God for guidance and for grace.
The next day, Virginia called and said that she had a family that might
like to look at our house. A day
later they came by, they fell in love with the house and immediately agreed to
our terms. We had not even put up a “For Sale” sign.
We decided that God was telling us that yes, it was time to move on.
So we did.
In sharing this particular story, I don’t mean to suggest that every problem can turn into a victory, if what you mean by victory is that everything turns out the way you want it to or the way you think it ought to. What I do mean to suggest is that our life with God is going somewhere. God has a plan, and our struggles can help us along in the right direction if we turn to God in the struggle.
Here’s another story, something that I read about just this week, but
it took place at least 30 years ago. It
happened to a man by the name of Ferrar Burn who lived on a remote island in
Haro Strait the San Juan Islands, on the far northwest corner of the State of
Washington. (adapted from Annie
Dillard’s The Writing Life)
The waters were cold and deep, fierce tides ripped in and out twice a
day. The incoming tide ran north;
the outgoing tide drained south. Like
many people on the islands, Ferrar was always looking for what might be coming
in with the tide. One evening he
saw a log floating out in the channel. It
looked yellow, like Alaska cedar. He
hoped it was Alaska cedar—those were highly prized logs.
It was high tide, slack. Ferrar
saw the log, launched his little skiff at Fishery Point, and rowed out in the
channel. Sure enough, it was that
beautiful Alaska cedar, that pale yellow wood—just a short log, about eight
feet, or he would have never tried it without a motor.
He tied onto the log and started rowing back home with it.
He had about twenty feet of line on it.
He started rowing home, and the tide caught him.
The tide started going out, and it caught that log and dragged it south.
Ferrar kept rowing back north toward his house.
The tide pulled him south down the strait from one end to the other.
Ferrar kept rowing back toward Fishery Point. He might as well have tied onto a whale.
He was rowing to the north and moving fast to the south.
He wanted to be going home, so toward home he kept pulling.
When the sun set, at about nine o’clock, he’d swept south the whole
length of the beach. When the moon
rose a few hours later he saw that he’d swept past his island altogether and
out into the channel between that island and its nearest neighbor.
He continued to row away from the neighboring island as it grew closer.
Then, he felt the tide go slack, and then he felt it coming in again.
The current had reversed.
Ferrar kept rowing in the half moonlight.
The tide poured in from the south. He
kept rowing north for home—only now the log was with him. It started getting light at about three o’clock, and he
rowed past his island’s southern tip. The
sun came up, and he rowed all the length of the beach. The tide brought him back on home. His wife, June, saw him coming; she’d been curious about
him all night.
Everybody on the island soon heard about how he’d been carried out
almost all the way to the next island trying to bring in a log.
They asked him about it. He
said he had a little backache.
That’s how life feels a lot of times, doesn’t it?
The current gets hold of you and drags you where you don’t want to go.
You just keep at it, hoping the tide will turn and bring you back home.
But as Christians we have something better than just the tide to bring us
back in. We have a little something
in our pocket called faith.
Which brings me to the verse from Hebrews 11. Faith, the writer says, is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. And faith is the goal in our relationship with God. We may think that certain outcomes are the goal. But God’s goal for us is that we will trust. Trust God.
Remember that the next time you feel trapped between the Egyptians and the deep blue sea. You may have a particular outcome that you want to have happen. God’s goal for you is to trust God. And when you trust God, you know that no matter what twists and turns your life may take, ultimately all will be well.