Exodus 13:17 And it came to pass, when Pharaoh had let the people go, that God led them not through the way of the land . . ., although that was near; for God said. . .
Have you ever looked at a circumstance (crisis) in your spiritual life and asked either quietly or out loud to God the question of why He allowed that certain event to happen to you? I would like to address this very subject of “Why God arranges a crisis” from Exodus 13.
The first thought is that He wanted to move His children from one place to another. In verse 17 and following we see that God chose NOT to lead them one particular direction “although that was near” - meaning it was a simpler, more convenient route and instead it says that He chose to lead them near the Red Sea. Well, soon after we discover that they were “trapped” between the Red Sea and Pharaoh’s army.
The children of Israel had the same question we often do when we find ourselves spiritual being led to some new challenging area or simply a crisis in our life that has us puzzled - Why This? Why did God arrange this crisis?
Many times it is simply to get us moving OUT of where we are toward something different just because He does not desire us to remain where we are. Maybe it is complacency, maybe it is that we have become lazy, maybe it is because we have stopped learning new lessons about God and maybe it is just because we are becoming too much like the people around us who are not as excited about God as He desires us to be. Now there was definitely a purpose for WHY God wanted to move them, but we will save that for a future devotion.
We need to understand first and foremost (before we can learn His lessons and purposes) that we must submit our will to God and accept that He knows what is best for our life and embrace the crisis for what it is - a chance for God to get us away from what has paralyzed our spiritual life and move us toward the awesome action of what He wants to do for us moving forward.
Take your crisis to Him and thank Him for it and ask for Him to show you His purposes in the crisis. Next time we will look at some principles that He wants us to learn as we surrender our lives to the purposes of His crisis.
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