April 11 elevate review

Crossing the Red Sea.....

I Acknowledge that crossing the Red Sea is a famous/well-known Bible story in the secular world, Judaism, and Christianity.within the secular world it is a story that has been broken down and scrutinized so that the Bible could be proved to be unreliable. within Christianity and Judaism is seen as a story of great redemption and amazing displays of God's power.
I acknowledge my presuppositions do filter what I read in Scripture, I do believe presuppositions also affects the secular/academic community. I believe the Bible to be true, God to be real, and miracles to be unexplainable and possible . Within the Secular community those filters are different, so their interpretations are different, and that does not mean that they are not intelligent or honest.

Within the general layout of the story there are some little details that I enjoy acknowledging, so I will put them here but I also would like to know what parts of the story you enjoy.

The idea that God would not let them take the short way to the promise land. The quickest way would've led them through hostile territory and probably battles that they were not prepared to fight. I am sure after watching God defeat the Egyptians through the plagues there was a sense for some of invincibility. The Bible says that God knew that their hearts would melt away if faced with a battle.
Trusting God to know our hearts better than we do is an act of humility. The applications regarding this part of the story are many.God understands what we can handle and what we cannot. God is not required to destroy every enemy through miraculous means so we may have to take the long way around until we are ready to fight enemies of God's plan with God's power.

The second aspect I like to point out is the way to learn cloud/fire moved to the back of the Hebrews and separated them from the Egyptian army. Separation was a mysterious black cloud that formed a wall of black fog in which the Egyptians could not find a way around or through. On the other side were flames that lit up the night so the Hebrews could see their way across the Red Sea, and allow the wind to be super hot to dry up the ocean floor so they could walk across on dry ground.
The Hebrews did get very nervous and cried out to Moses in order to beg God to send them back to Egypt.I know as a child I used to think badly of the Hebrews for not trusting God, but now as an adult I do understand. God was calling them out of something they were very used to. And even though slavery was not a lot of fun it was something they were comfortable doing. Not comfortable as an everything was cool, but comfortable as in they knew what the day was going to be like, and they knew how to function within that society without getting themselves scared, or in a position where they would desperately need God.
God was calling them out into a relationship in which they would be dependent on him, and who he is in order to survive. And although sometimes this sounds great on paper to live it out can be very scary especially when you're used to being controlled by society, or in control of what you consider to be your life.

I also like the reference to God looking out over the Egyptian army when the cloud lifts up and allows the Army to start to follow the Hebrews through the ocean. The concept in the original language is that he leaned out of the window and scared them. For a brief second Egyptian army got to glimpse an angry God which had to be amazingly powerful. It says when they saw his face they were thrown into confusion. (I love when the Bible understates something)
Along that same time period within the story, we see that God knocked the wheels off the chariots, confused the horses so they couldn't pull in the right direction, and then caused the ocean to fall down around them. God effectively destroyed the Egyptians ability to ever come back after the Hebrews for the next 40 years.
At the end of the story we see that the Egyptian army floated to the surface in the Hebrews were able to confirm what God had done.
This I see as a sign that God wants his people to know that they can trust him, and he didn't allow the Egyptians to drown He killed them before they were crushed by the water. (Because drowned bodies don't float)

In general we drew the conclusion that God will call us out of whatever it is that keeps us from a relationship with him.and a new relationship can make us feel very uncomfortable because it involves constant work in order to maintain, and oftentimes we will desire of God something of a list of things to do so that we don't have to maintain a relationship with Him.
Slavery can represent many things when we apply this passage, and so can the rescue of us from that slavery by God. It's not easy to be called out of what we are comfortable in, even when we see miracles sometimes within the only days we are asking God to reverse the miracle and put us back where we started.
I encourage you to keep walking, recognize God's hand in every small and large miracle. And understand that God seeks to restore us back to where we belong, which for the Hebrews was the Covenant relationship he had started with Abraham and for us....... well you know what he wants.
(And I bet it has to do with a relationship)