(Look above the desert for the stripe in the middle of the picture–The Sea.)
I never ever get a window seat.
I aways allow The Preacher to hunker there so I can shield him from Chatty Cathy or Talky Tom. In faux-extrovert mode all day at work, to recharge he thrives on silence with his nose in a book.
But today on a trip to the other side of the world, I am all alone with my very own window seat.
And though I had cold feet about enduring two solitary eight-hour plane rides, from Detroit to Amsterdam and on to Rwanda, I found myself giddy as I began to figure out what we were soaring over.
Nose pressed to the window,
Heart thumping with excitement,
I felt like a little kid trying get as close as I could without smudging the window. Well, maybe I did smudge it a time or two…
A white blanket, as if snow, covered the ground as far as my eye could see. Yet snow made no sense for our southerly route. The plane locator map on my tiny TV screen revealed the truth to be– miles and miles of scorching white sand of The Sahara Desert. I scanned for an oasis but I saw no signs of civilization from my birds-eye-view.
So I knew we were close.
Squinting and patiently waiting for the clouds to thin, I gazed with rapt attention.
In the distance it spilled— The Red Sea.
Visions of God parting this water with a frantic Moses ushering his people into the dry sea bed, danced in my mind. Somehow I had the size pictured as similar to the Mississippi River which flows eleven miles in width at it’s widest point. But when I focused on the immensity of this body of water, up to two-hundred-twenty-one miles wide, my breath hitched and I felt a reverent awe encase me.
(The dark line in the lower right is The Nile)
As I changed my sight line I saw it. Snaking beneath us, carving the sand was The Nile River.
The same river that Pharaoh’s daughter bathed in.
The same river that produced the tiny Hebrew baby, later raised in the palace as a prince.
The same river that produced millions of frogs.
The same river that coughed up all life teeming beneath the surface, as our God turned it to blood and filled the land with the dreadful stench of death.
I’d never felt Moses so acutely.
The echoes reverberated of a fearful man, changed by God to save his people.
The once favored son who tried to defend his people with his own hand, became a hunted murderer.
On Pharaoh’s hit list, he fled to the desert to wander in exile for years.
A has-been,
Unimportant,
Forgotten.
But God was not done with him.
With forty years of toil to vanquish the impulsive brashness of a younger man, time ripened for him to do things God’s way.
And though he balked and whined and begged for help, Gods patience and provision prevailed. Joined by Aaron, he found courage and became the knight in shinning armor God envisioned for his people.
A forgotten man
Remembered by God.
***************
Exodus 4:13 But Moses said, “Pardon your servant, Lord. Please send someone else.”
-What do you need courage to do?
-What do you need to let go of and wait on the perfect timing of God?Finding Cour