Like the Israelites, we have experienced personally some salvific moments in which God revealed his power, his mercy, his love, his freedom, his life to us. Whether the signs and wonders were as dramatic in our lives as they were in the Israelites in Egypt is not important. What is important is that God saved us from a life of tragic consequences. If God had not intervened either dramatically or quietly, we would have continued on a path leading to nowhere and nothingness, a life of eternal separation from God, and a future full of woe.


Like the Israelites the spiritual honeymoon didn't last long, the reality that our past will not leave us so easily became clear very soon after we began our new journey. Our task masters of the past--the sinful desires and pleasures, the negative attitudinal bondage, the fears, the seemingly inescapable needs, our former way of life with its so-called friends--all seem to converge on us once again. If we give in or give up at this point, we fail the first test of the journey. Is God capable of deleivering us or not? Can God make a way when our enemies are on one side and our backs are up against a vast sea?

What did Moses tell the Israelites and what does God say to us? "Fear not! Stand your ground, and you will see the victory the Lord will win for you today....The Lord himself will fight for you; you have only to keep still" (Ex. 14:13-14). To believe that this journey has a purpose, to trust that the Lord's plan will be revealed, to be still and wait upon the Lord is to discover the first of many springs in the spiritual desert.