Move On

As the new year dawns, we find ourselves once again moving out of our comfort zone. The company is growing by leaps and bounds, we have a new team, a real office, more employees and even more challenges as we move forward in a year that is just 2 weeks old! It is nearly overwhelming at times.

Whenever you experience change in your life and that change comes up against heavy opposition, it’s normal to look back and wonder if you are headed in the right direction. God doesn’t do ‘easy’ very often with me. He is constantly stretching and growing me. At 60 there are times when all I want is to return to the simpler easier life that I had before we started the business.

However, what I realize is He has not called me, nor for that matter, any of us to a life of ease and simplicity. When we hit a snag in one of our productions we will tell each, “If it was easy, anybody could do it.” That statement helps us to focus on a solution, not the problem.

When we work beyond the difficulties of life we realize the life we have been called to is full and rich. Jesus said this in John 10:10, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”

As I have followed the Lord earnestly the last 15 years, I can just about tell when change is coming…I find myself at a level of contentment with my life, it’s easy. That’s the signal that change is coming and even though change is hard, when it’s directed by the Lord, it’s always worthwhile.

Blessings

Move On!
by Os Hillman

…”Why are you crying out to Me? Tell the Israelites to move on.” – Exodus 14:15

Moses had brought the whole nation of Israel, approximately 600,000, to a dead end in the desert. The only thing between Israel and Pharaoh’s pursuing army was the Red Sea. This was after ten plagues God had inflicted on Pharaoh to motivate him to free the Israelites. Finally, Pharaoh had freed Moses and the people, and they left Egypt. They thought they were home free. “Freedom at last,” they said. But God did a strange thing. He directed Moses to take a route that led to the Red Sea, instead of the northern route around the Red Sea. God explained that He didn’t want them fighting the enemies they would have encountered on this route. But still, there was the issue of the Red Sea.

They finally arrived at the Red Sea, and the people were wondering where they would go from there. News hit the camp: Pharaoh had changed his mind. He was coming after them with his army. Panic set in. The defenseless Israelites cried out, “Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you brought us to the desert to die?…It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the desert!” (Ex. 14:11b-12)

God sometimes brings each of us to a “Red Sea” in our life. It may be a work problem that can’t be solved. It may be a marriage that seems to be failing. It may be a debilitating disease. Whatever your Red Sea, God tells us one thing: “Keep moving.” The Red Sea was before them, yet God was angered at Moses and told him to “Keep moving.”

“But Lord, the Red Sea is before me.” “Keep moving.” When we live by sight, we act on what we see. God sets this stage in dramatic fashion. God is into the dramatic. There is no way out without God here. That is just the way He wants it. No one will get glory except God.

A friend once admonished me when I was in the midst of an extremely difficult time in my life, “You must not withdraw from being proactive in your faith just because of this trial that you are in. God’s hand is on your life. There are too many who are depending on you to fulfill the purposes God has in your life. Keep moving! Keep investing yourself in others.” I didn’t feel like it. I was in too much pain. But I did it anyway. God met me at the point of my greatest need once I decided simply to be obedient. Getting past myself by investing myself in others helped heal the pain. There is great healing when we look past our own problems and seek to invest ourselves in others for the sake of Christ. This is when our own Red Seas become parted. We begin to walk to freedom. But we will never experience the miracle of the Red Sea in our lives if we don’t first “Keep moving.”