Skip to main content

Eyes Up - part 5 - Patience

By

“...where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord....
Psalm 121:1-2 NIV

Ahhhh..... patience. That’s it. That’s all I have for this post.

Anyone suffer from a lack of patience? I know I do and that is why I find it hard to give advice on the topic. This is why I’m not giving advice. I’m going to let God do that.

I want to draw you attention to Exodus 14 for this week’s post. Moses has already been summoned by God to go back to Egypt and free the Israelites from Pharaoh. After much talking, plagues and stubbornness - Pharaoh lets the Israelites go. Moses leads them out of Egypt and they get as far as the Red Sea. Meanwhile, Pharaoh has changed his mind and is in hot pursuit of them. The people begin to grumble at Moses because of their situation. They said things like:

“They said to Moses, ‘Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you brought us to the desert to die? What have you done to us by bringing us out of Egypt? Didn’t we say to you in Egypt, ‘Leave us alone; let us serve the Egyptians’? It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the desert!’” - Exodus 14:11-12 NIV

Moses then gets all of their attention and tell them:

“Moses answered the people, ‘Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the Lord will bring you today. The Egyptians you see today you will never see again. The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still.’” - Exodus 14:13-14 NIV

Now think about their situation. This is probably what they thought. They are stuck at the banks of the Red Sea. They can’t go forward because of that. They can’t go back because Pharaoh and his army are coming to get them. They can’t fight because they didn’t have anything to fight with. They are sitting ducks just waiting for Pharaoh to get to them and either kill them or take them back to be slaves. But to top it all off they have this leader that was supposed to have rescued them and taken them to a better place and he’s just sitting there on a rock telling them to “be still”.

Moses then goes to God and complains because the people are complaining at him. God then tells Moses to raise his staff so that Israel could cross the Red Sea.

“Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and all that night the Lord drove the sea back with a strong east wind and turned it into dry land. The waters were divided,” - Exodus 14:21 NIV

So now Israel sees Moses get up. They think that maybe something will happen now. They think that maybe he has an idea. They watch him walk over to the Red Sea and raise his hands out over the water. Then he sits back down.

After watching that, I bet Israel lost their minds. I bet they laid into Moses even more then they had in the past. They were probably saying things like: “Really! That’s it!” “What are we going to do?” “Are you just going to sit there?” “This is stupid! We are just going to die out here!” #ShouldastayedinEgypt

The people of Israel were being anything but still. They did not have their eyes up. They were being anything but patient. They were also missing one of the most awesome things to ever happen. As they were focused on the problems at hand (the Red Sea and Pharaoh’s army) they were missing the Red Sea slowly part down the middle. Just as Exodus 14:21 said - it took all night for that to happen. But what an event to watch. But they were complaining and not even focused.

But Moses was doing what God said. He had his eyes up. He was being patient and waiting on God to work.

This is where it is hard though.

Patience lies between Pharaoh’s army and God’s deliverance.

 Patience lies between our troubles and God’s deliverance. Just like Israel we worry and fight and wonder what is going to happen - when God has told us to “be still and let Him fight”. [1]

God called Israel to an Eyes Up focus that day at the Red Sea. He calls us to an Eyes Up focus as well.

Stop trying to fight the battles that God is already fighting and has already won! Just let God fight.

 “But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently. In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness...” - Romans 8:25-26 NIV
____________________
[1] Exodus 14:14
I would love to hear from you!!
Questions or comments... Please leave them below or email secondstagequestions@gmail.com
PLEASE VISIT THE SECOND STAGE MINISTRIES FACEBOOK PAGE - CLICK LIKE!!
PLEASE VISIT THE SECOND STAGE MINISTRIES YOUTUBE CHANNEL
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular Posts for Second Stage Ministries

God, You Failed

By
"God, you failed me!” Many of us have probably heard these words, thought these words, or even said these words. We get tired of waiting for God to do something. We feel like God’s inbox is full and our prayers are just bouncing off the ceiling and coming right back at us. So, in some cases and with some people, they give up and say “God, you failed me!” I feel these words in certain areas of the Bible: Peter, Paul, Moses, Joseph, the disciples and the people that followed and believed in Jesus just to watch Him get crucified. The one that is probably the most obvious is David as he writes in the Psalms about feeling abandoned by God. For this post, I was directed to a familiar story in the Gospel of John. In this story, we are going to see this happen as two women he frustrated with Jesus. The women’s names were Mary and Martha and they had a brother named Lazarus. Lazarus has talked ill and the women had sent for Jesus urging him to come quickly saying “the one yo
Post a Comment
Read more

Eyes Up - part 4 - Peace

By
“...where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord.... Psalm 121:1-2 NIV There are just some things that we need help with and that is just a fact. So in this series of posts we are looking at a few of those kind of things and trying change our focus to the One that can give us true help with these things. We have been focusing in on Psalm 121:1-2 for this “Eyes Up” refocus. The psalmist realized that there is really only one true source of help and refocused attention to that source. The topic of today’s post is one that is really only found in Jesus. Peace. What is that anymore? Look around you, turn on the news or scroll Facebook/Twitter and you will see there is really no such thing as peace anymore. People are constantly at each other because of their opinions and refusing to accept one another’s views and move on with life. There is chaos in the line at Walmart because someone cut in line and instead of just letting them have the spot - a verbal fight brea
Post a Comment
Read more

Kryptonite

By
“[looking away from all that will distract us and] focusing our eyes on Jesus , who is the Author and Perfecter of faith....” -  Hebrews 12:2 a AMP Have you ever lost focus? Maybe it was a task you were working on and one of your kids (or spouse) come into the room or called out to you from another place in the house causing you to turn your attention from what you were doing to them or their calling out. Then you look back at your task and have to remember where you were or what exactly you have done. Did I add salt to this? Did I put in the sugar for the cookies? How many cups of flour did I put in the mixing bowl already? You get the idea. Have you been there? There are times in life when we can be the same way. We are going along in life - our day to day activities - our gaze is laser focused on Jesus. Then all of a sudden something happens in our life that seemingly comes out of nowhere and takes our focus off of Jesus. We begin then to fall into the storm of what
Post a Comment
Read more

I

By
Last Thursday night, I was sitting in service and Pastor Beeson started the service with a prayer. He started with the words "I need you God" and this is what came to me over the course of that opening moment of prayer. Take a minute to read these words, reflect on these words or pray these words. ---------------- I need you God I need grace I need your love I need your patience I need your forgiveness I need you God I need your joy I need your self-control I need your kindness I need your knowledge I need you God I need your strength I need your hope I need your presence I need your power I need you God I need your peace I need your goodness I need your gentleness I need your mercy I need you God I need what I am not worthy of ___________________ Questions or comments... please email secondstagequestions@gmail.com PLEASE VISIT THE  SECOND STAGE MINISTRIES FACEBOOK PAGE  - CLICK LIKE!! PLEASE VISIT THE  SECOND STAGE MINISTRIES
Post a Comment
Read more