"Have you come to the red sea place in your life

Where in spite of all you can do

There is no way out, there is no way back,

There is no other way but through?

Then wait on the Lord with a trust serene

He will send the wind, he will heap the floods,

When he says to your soul, “Go on!”

In the morning, watch, beneath the lifted cloud,

You shall see but the Lord alone,

When He leads you on from the place of the Sea

To a land that you have not known;

And your fears shall passed as your foes have passed,

You shall no more be afraid;

You shall sing His praise in a better place,

A place that His hand has made."

Sometimes the only thing we can do during the storms of life is learn how to dance in the rain.  Our family has been through many storms in the last 3 years, from my near death experience with a golf club, to resigning from a church that the Lord allowed us to pastor so that they could experience true integrity and a call to genuine repentance and obedience.  Like Moses, Abraham, Jacob and even Saul in the New Testament, as believers we must realize that God is still in the business of being a name changer (Nehemiah 9-10).  No, of course I don't mean physically like in Biblical times, but spiritually as we fight for the kingdom of God.  It is in these times of trial, when we anchor ourselves in the mercy, lovingkindness, longsuffering and compassion of God that we trust the sufficiency of Scripture, the sufficiency of our great Advocate (I John 2:1) who leads us and guides us into all Truth.  Tonight I just want to remind all of you that we have the God who is a warrior in our midst, who exalts over us with singing and quiets us in the peace of His love.  I'll write more tomorrow but for now remember the old story of the captain who had a 1st time crew member who was nervous about going out and so he said to the captain, "How do we know if we will make it back?"  The old captain looked at the rookie sailor and said, "We will never know if we'll make it back unless this ship leaves this harbour.  But if this ship never leaves this harbour then we will never feel the romance of the sea, the power of the wind and audacity of the current.  We may not make it back, but at least we will have gone out."  The great lesson here is that too many of us never leave the harbour, we stay in comfort zones, complacent, comfortable, apathetic, always waiting for God to say something to us when He already has, He said, "Go".

Shoulder to Shoulder, yours in life and death,