I am catching up on my reading from [1]Streams in the Desert by L. B. Cowman. The March 12 devotion focuses on God’s use of stormy winds to win the deliverance of the Israelites in Egypt. Today we are experiencing very strong winds under sunny skies but thankfully, not stormy winds. The correlation between the strong winds we are experiencing here, and the reading has not escaped me.
The writer, Mark Guy Pearse, has us to think about the stormy winds that God used to bring the locusts to Egypt, and the stormy winds that God sent in a different direction to blow the locusts away into the Red Sea. (Exodus 10:13, 16, 19)
Then we look at the greatest display of God’s power at the Red Sea when the Israelites were rushing to escape Pharoah and a life of cruel hardship. Just when the Israelites were convinced that God was creating this cruel thing to wipe them out, Moses tells them to “Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the Lord will bring you today.” (Exodus 14:13, NIV). I have to wonder if the Israelites were standing firm at this point and looking forward toward the sea, or rather, looking behind them nervously at the encroaching Egyptians?
Nevertheless, God rescued them through His mighty power and the use of stormy winds to push back the Red Sea so the Israelites could cross on dry ground.
Has God used stormy winds to bring you to deliverance? We have all experienced great sorrows and difficulties in life, but did God sweep them away during your stormy night of fear and grief? Did He deliver you from the weight of those difficulties?
There may be many questions we have about all that we experience here on this earth. We may not see today what God has done or is doing to sweep the enemy away, but in time, we will see how He used those stormy winds to break the evil chains which can so easily restrain us. Then we will know how the stormy winds have won our deliverance.
Will we dance and sing and praise God as the Israelites did once they were on dry ground? Will we do this for today only and then forget, or will we rejoice in Him for the days to come? Will we boast of His “great and marvelous deeds”? (Revelation 15:3, NIV)
Mark Guy Pearse ends his devotion in this way:
“Today you cower at the howling wind and the roaring thunder, but then you will see how they beat back the waves of destruction and opened your way to the peaceful Land of Promise.”
May we be able to “stand firm and see the deliverance the Lord will bring you today” to open our way to this “peaceful Land of Promise!"
Thanks for stopping by, Rachel
[1] L. B. Cowman, Streams in the Desert (Zondervan, Michigan, 1997), Mark Guy Pearse, March 12, 110-111.
Comments