“Then I sent Moses and Aaron. I plagued Egypt with what I did to them. After that I brought you out. I brought your ancestors out of Egypt, and you came to the sea. The Egyptians chased your ancestors with chariots and horses to the Reed Sea. Then they cried for help to the Lord. So he set darkness between you and the Egyptians. He brought the sea down on them, and it covered them. With your own eyes you saw what I did to the Egyptians.” – Joshua 24:5-7 (CEB)
By the time we reach the sea in this story, the people have nothing left but a cry for help. Chariots behind them, water in front of them, no plan of their own that could possibly work. Then they cried for help to the Lord. That’s the whole strategy: crying out, because there is nothing else left to do.
God doesn’t send a clever escape route. God sends darkness between them and the danger, and a sea that opens and closes on command. With your own eyes you saw what I did, God says later, through Joshua. Not what you did. What I did.
Where in your life right now is the only honest move left a cry for help?
God who parts seas, meet me in the place where I have run out of my own plans. I cry out to you now. Amen.