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God’s Will Brings Unexpected Paths

Moses could never have perceived the strange direction his life would take. Many paths of life are unexpected, to say the least. Truly following Christ will result in more unexpected turns than expected ones. The surrendering of our will and dreams to the Lord puts us on the highway, but not behind the wheel. 

God’s unexpected paths far exceed our shortsighted expectations. With water before them and an army pressing in behind, the children of Israel seemed out of good choices. Think of all the ways that God could have intervened in this situation. The Israelites could have turned to fight back the army. This was the strategy God used with Gideon; small army beats big army. The Lord could have turned Pharaoh’s militia around with a vision of angels as He did with Elisha. Stones from the water’s edge slung in David vs. Goliath style could have done the trick, or if the water had to be included, why not a preview of Peter’s stroll on top? Instead, an unthinkable and unexpected way opens up. What would happen if God split the sea in two?! 

Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and the Lord drove the sea back with a strong east wind and turned it into dry land. The waters were divided. 

WOW! Unexpected is how God rolls. When you are trapped at the water’s edge, keep walking, because God opens unexpected paths. With this kind of miracle, the power, timing, and leadership are entirely the Lord’s. What a walk of faith to stroll between two walls of water, thought to be at least 20 feet high! The Hebrew word used for “wall” connotes a massively large (usually a city) wall!1 Each step they took could be their last as the deafening water roared to the right and left. Faith in an unexpected path, trusting the impossible, is reality. 

Hudson Taylor, the nineteenth-century British missionary to China, vowed, “I have found that there are three stages to every great work of God: first, it is impossible, then it is difficult, then it is done.”2 What does that mean for you today? What army and sea do you sense moving in? God will do something unexpected. A path of clearing and guidance will come from an unexpected but miraculous place. Stay faithful, roll up your jeans and walk through the water when He splits it apart. 

Notes

5. Douglas Stuart, Exodus: The Electronic Edition, Logos Library System, New American Commentary II (Nashville, TN: Broadman and Holman Publishers, 2007), s. 36. 

6. Nick Harrison, The Magnificent Prayer (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2001), p. 428.