streams of water

Where is God?

Posted on by Betsy

Twenty-five years ago today our nation sustained a terrorist attack on our soil the likes of which had never been experienced before. A total of 2,977 (plus 19 hijackers) perished that day. Four airplanes full of passengers were crashed. The North and South Towers of New York City’s World Trade Center, part of the Pentagon in Washington D.C. and a field in Shanksville, PA were demolished and destroyed in a little more than an hour that morning.

It has taken years for structures, industries, and lives to recover. The airline industry plunged into chaos as air traffic was grounded for three days. Major airlines were forced into bankruptcy following the aftermath of consumer fear. My Delta pilot husband lost his pension due to 9/11. Years later, people who had been exposed to falling debris were dying of cancer. It seemed like it would never end. The world looked heavenward and cried, “Where is God?”

Can you think of a time in your life when things were so chaotic that you wondered “Where is God?“ A death, divorce, terminal diagnosis, a child who gets arrested, getting fired from your job, or anything currently happening in America might cause you to ask such a thing. Anytime we sustain a shock to our system we are tempted to question God’s presence and activity.

Such was the case with the struggling Israelites as they made their way across the desert. Tired, hungry, thirsty, and exhausted, they quickly forgot how God had just delivered them from certain death in Egypt. They voiced their fear that they might be looking at certain death in the wilderness:

Exodus 17 (The Message)

 1-2 Directed by God, the whole company of Israel moved on by stages from the Wilderness of Sin. They set camp at Rephidim. And there wasn’t a drop of water for the people to drink. The people took Moses to task: “Give us water to drink.” But Moses said, “Why pester me? Why are you testing God?”

3 But the people were thirsty for water there. They complained to Moses, “Why did you take us from Egypt and drag us out here with our children and animals to die of thirst?”

When they looked at their immediate circumstances, it indeed seemed as though God was absent. Their thirst and exhaustion were the only things they could see. Any hope for the future based on the deliverance in their past was wiped from their minds. Desperation set in.

Have you ever been in that kind of wilderness where all you could see was pain and despair and you forgot how God had loved you through your wilderness wanderings in times past? It is easy to forget.

4 Moses cried out in prayer to God, “What can I do with these people? Any minute now they’ll kill me!”

5-6 God said to Moses, “Go on out ahead of the people, taking with you some of the elders of Israel. Take the staff you used to strike the Nile. And go. I’m going to be present before you there on the rock at Horeb. You are to strike the rock. Water will gush out of it and the people will drink.”

You see, the people hadn’t arrived at their final destination yet. They needed to keep moving forward. They needed to be obedient to God’s call to become his people and follow his way. They needed to have a smidge more faith. God was trying to lead them out of their thirst and into a land flowing with milk and honey … they just needed to keep going.

6-7 Moses did what he said, with the elders of Israel right there watching. He named the place Massah (Testing-Place) and Meribah (Quarreling) because of the quarreling of the Israelites and because of their testing of God when they said, “Is God here with us, or not?”

Where is God telling you right now to just keep moving forward? What circumstance has you so momentarily paralyzed that you have forgotten his goodness to you in the past? Can you keep your faith just a little longer?

God always goes before us. If you look up with the eyes of faith, you will be able to spot him there on the rock where the waters of peace, hope, justice, and consolation await. Just as he was with us on 9/11, he is with us today.

Never forget.

Water to Drink

Streams in the Desert

Posted on by Betsy

Have you ever been so discouraged that you began to question your faith? Have things ever hit you so hard that you suddenly felt uncertain about everything in your life? This happened to John the Baptizer when he was in jail. He began to question Jesus’ messiahship in that dark and foreboding place. When Jesus heard this, he sent a message through a friend to say that indeed, he was the Messiah, and he quoted today’s passage from Isaiah as proof.

“4 Jesus responded, “Go, report to John what you hear and see. 5 Those, who were blind, are able to see. Those who were crippled are walking. People with skin diseases are cleansed. Those who were deaf now hear. Those who were dead are raised up. The poor have good news proclaimed to them. 6 Happy are those who don’t stumble and fall because of me” (Matthew 11:4-6, Common English Bible).

 John was soothed in his dismay when he heard these familiar words from the prophet Isaiah. They were a foretelling of a future Messiah, which John realized had now arrived in Jesus. 

Isaiah 35:5-10 (Common English Bible)

Then the eyes of the blind will be opened,
and the ears of the deaf will be cleared.
6 Then the lame will leap like the deer,
and the tongue of the speechless will sing.
Waters will spring up in the desert,
and streams in the wilderness.

7 The burning sand will become a pool,
and the thirsty ground, fountains of water.
The jackals’ habitat, a pasture;[a]
grass will become reeds and rushes.

8 A highway will be there.
It will be called The Holy Way.
The unclean won’t travel on it,
but it will be for those walking on that way.[b]
Even fools won’t get lost on it;
9 no lion will be there,
and no predator will go up on it.
None of these will be there;
only the redeemed will walk on it.

10 The Lord’s ransomed ones will return and enter Zion with singing,
with everlasting joy upon their heads.
Happiness and joy will overwhelm them;
grief and groaning will flee away.

As we read these words, they are a reminder that God provides for our needs in the dry places. They are an assurance that God’s saving power is strong enough to ignite miracles such as sight and hearing in the blind and deaf. They bring hope. As is often the case in Isaiah’s writings, we are invited to visualize things such as streams in bleak deserts and the thirsty ground turning into a pool of clear water. These word-pictures tell of illusions turning into reality through the power of God. Indeed, the translation of the word pool in the seventh verse is translated as “mirage,” a further reminder of the illusion of water that God transforms into fountains that feed the thirsty ground.

Isaiah invites us today to travel on a highway called the “Holy Way.” It is a place for the redeemed to safely walk in righteousness and holiness in pursuit of the Lord. This causes us to ponder where we are. Are you walking the Holy Way, or have you lost your way? Are you pursuing Zion and its promises of redemption, or are you chasing after worldly things? Wealth, fame, fortune, and leisure are things that people pursue that aren’t offered on the Holy Way. What do you need to do to get back on the highway?

 We are offered “everlasting joy upon our heads” and are assured that happiness and joy will overwhelm us when we travel this way. Grief and groaning are not part of this path. 

As you meditate on these words, ask yourself this: is it time to get back on track? God always makes a way.

Walking the Highway by Sallie Williams

The Disrespectful

Posted on by Betsy

When did it become acceptable to be so disrespectful?

Regardless of what side you take on a political or social issue, you will find loud statements of disrespect on both sides. Name calling, snide remarks, hate words, slander…all these are weapons in the war of words which society fully engages in day after day. Social media is very anti-social. News is not so much newsworthy as it is opinionated, and those who are privileged with opinion platforms are loud, inappropriately angry, and seethe with disrespect.

What does this do to us as we listen? Do you walk away from these encounters discouraged, defeated, detached, and with your blood pressure elevated? Me, too.

In our Psalm today we are reminded that happiness can’t be found among the disrespectful.

Psalm 1 (Common English Bible)

The truly happy person
    doesn’t follow wicked advice,
    doesn’t stand on the road of sinners,
    and doesn’t sit with the disrespectful.
2 Instead of doing those things,
    these persons love the Lord’s Instruction,
    and they recite God’s Instruction day and night!
3 They are like a tree replanted by streams of water,
    which bears fruit at just the right time
    and whose leaves don’t fade.
        Whatever they do succeeds.

I have a friend who initially gave up social media for Lent and then decided to stay off due to the constant disrespect he experienced when he expressed his political beliefs. He discovered that his “friends” quickly went on the attack, even if he was trying to respectfully argue a point. I have another friend who is a retired police officer who suffers daily from what he reads on the internet.

I think it is important to remember that the celebrity “news” people and your so-called “friends” on social media platforms are merely dust that blows away. The trick is to not let it get in your eyes as it blows past you. We need to keep clear eyes focused solely on the Lord’s instruction. That helps us to be like trees that are planted by the water that will bear fruit for the kingdom if we focus on keeping the righteous things in the foreground.

4 That’s not true for the wicked!
    They are like dust that the wind blows away.
5 And that’s why the wicked will have no standing in the court of justice—
    neither will sinners
    in the assembly of the righteous.
6 The Lord is intimately acquainted
    with the way of the righteous,
    but the way of the wicked is destroyed.

God blesses the righteous with happiness and destroys the disrespectful.

Perhaps we should all closely monitor the things we engage in that are making us unhappy. My guess is that spending less time engaging with angry people will result in feeling more peaceful. Reading God’s word day and night will result in an intimacy with him that brings calm to our hearts.

And thank you so much for reading At Water’s Edge! May you find peace, hope, and contentment today as you carry his word in your heart.

Come and Sit