13 Moses answered the people, “Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the Lord will bring you today. The Egyptians you see today you will never see again. 14 The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still.”
15 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Why are you crying out to me? Tell the Israelites to move on. Exodus 14
Ok, so these four books of the bible are probably the most difficult for me to get through (Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy). Not because of the dense subject matter of the laws, the various census takings, or the genealogy, but because they center around Moses. He's not one of my favorite people in the Bible. I know some of you probably find this blasphemous, "But Moses was such a great leader to the Israelites!" but that's just my opinion. Anyways, I really try to keep an open mind when reading about Moses, in the hopes that I'll find something to sway my opinion. Alas, this passage is not that.
The Israelites were camping by the sea, and the Egyptians had chased after them and caught up to them. The Egyptians weren't immediately upon the Israelites, but they were close enough for the Israelites to see them and to panic. They went to Moses and he immediately tells them to stay still and let the Lord fight for them.
"Whoa, whoa, that's not what I said to do," is basically God's reply to this. God hadn't told Moses anything about this (at least, that we have documented), so Moses was showing faith that God will deliver them from the Egyptians. The problem is, it was a rash promise and wasn't what God had planned. Moses could have used a little more patience (here and in other places).
I'm working on teaching the concept of patience to my two year old (insert giggling at the futility of this endeavor here). He's really pretty good with it, most of the time. He'll get something stuck in his head that he wants, be it a cup of milk, a pop tart, a train, or his daddy who walked into the store, and he'll cry and whine for that item. I very calmly remind him, "Remember that patience we talked about? It's when you know something good is going to happen, but you have to wait for it." Believe it or not, but it mostly works with him. It will calm him down enough so we can start playing with something else to get his mind off of it and he soon forgets what he wanted in the first place (this isn't so easy when he's strapped to a car seat and we're waiting on daddy to come out of the store though).
We all could use a little more patience. Sometimes God doesn't immediately answer our prayers or give us a clear direction. We shouldn't assume to know what he wants, but should wait to hear from him. And when we finally hear from him, even if we don't like what we're hearing - because he may be telling us to start marching toward the sea - it is a good thing to get that response and direction.
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