Faith....Waiting....How much longer?
Ok I'm going to use it.
I'm going to use the word that wasn't that familiar a few months ago. A word that I may have read in History books. Maybe it's a word you haven't used too many times either, until now.....
UNPRECEDENTED.
It's an adjective. "Without previous instance; never before known or experienced; unexampled or unparalleled."
These are unprecedented times for sure and I don't know about you, but I'm over this. This time of waiting, the fear, the need for patience, the uncertainty, and the unknown BECAUSE these are unprecedented times!
My thoughts echo the Psalmist..."How long?" (Psalm 13) How much longer do we have to deal with this COVID19? How much longer will we hear about school closures and the rise of sex-trafficking?
How much longer will we hear that we can't visit the people we love that are in the hospital or suffering alone in Nursing Homes?
How much longer will businesses be closed and people out of work with no way to pay bills?
Does it ever seem to you, like it does to me, that God isn't doing anything? We just keep waiting but these unprecedented times just keep sluggishly going along?
In the old movie, "The Ten Commandments", Charlton Heston (Moses) held up his walking staff and the Red Sea parted in 17 seconds! In real life, the experts say that the Red Sea is around 12 miles across! How long did the sea really take to "part"?
We don't know how long it took for dry ground to appear. But there was a lot of fear. There was complaining. There was uncertainty and waiting. The Israelites were experiencing unprecedented times! And in these times, God was working.
The sea did not part in 17 seconds. We read in Exodus 14:21 "Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea and God, with a terrific east wind ALL NIGHT LONG, made the sea go back. He made the sea dry ground. The sea waters split."
Not in 17 seconds. Not the moment Moses raised his hand. Not even after listening to the Israelites cry out.
No, "all night long..."
I just wonder what prayers were cried. I wonder if anybody could even sleep that night wondering if they were going to see tomorrow. During the night, nobody had any idea how the next day was going to turn out.
But God knew. And God knows now how the unprecedented mess of a virus will turn out.
The Bible tells us that the Israelites looked at the drowned Egyptians that had chased them and "realized the tremendous power that God brought against them. The people were in reverent awe before God and TRUSTED in God."
What if we choose to use the word unprecedented in a positive way instead. We believe in a faithful Father. He is our God who made us, loves us so much He sent His Son for us. He is healer of diseases. Maker of Heavens.
We may not see God working in the darkness of the virus.
But, He is an unprecedented Father!
So when we cry out to Him and when we lay down to sleep, know that He is working for us through the night and never leaves us. Pray He will fill us with His hope as we trust Him with our lives.
Exodus 14
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