where waves grow sweet

The past couple of weeks since writing this post, I’ve been pretty much transformed. The post vaguely referred to my adult son who is struggling in his current set of very difficult circumstances. I won’t go into details since it’s his story to tell, but I came to realize that it wasn’t just about his heart and life, but also about what God wanted to address in me. I wanted to rescue him from the struggle to ease his pain and mine. Since I couldn’t, I felt helpless and afraid, which was no help to him and didn’t line up with my life as a believer.

Through prayer and a whole lot of worship, the Spirit broke through and showed me that our temporary comfort would be counterproductive to our future freedom. Rather than sit idly by in fear or try to escape the difficulty, I realized He was asking me to lean into it with all my strength. And so, by the powerful grace of God, that’s exactly what I’ve been doing. The more I have thanked Him for this hardship and verbalized trust that He can use it for good, the clearer it’s become that we are on holy ground – right in the hands of the God who loves us – and in that place, no weapon formed against us will prosper. Not only that, but that the weapons formed against us will be used instead to assault the kingdom of the enemy who set out to destroy us. I’m not just saying this to make myself feel better. I believe it with all my heart.

When Jesus was resurrected from his death on the cross, it wasn’t a return to the old life He lived before the cross. It was a new kind of life; one death could no longer touch. It couldn’t have been accomplished by climbing down off the cross or clinging to his old life. He had to go through the cross to get to the eternal stuff; the stuff that could no longer be assaulted by death… and so do we.

Isaiah 43:2 (NLT) says:

When you go through deep waters, I will be with you. When you go through rivers of difficulty, you will not drown. When you walk through the fire of oppression, you will not be burned up; the flames will not consume you.

This verse doesn’t talk about aversion or escape. It talks about deliverance. It’s what the Israelites experienced when Pharaoh finally released them from slavery, only to surround them with his powerful army and back them up against the Red Sea. There was no going back and no going around. They had to go through… but there appeared to be no way to do that either. They cried out to Moses that they would have been better off as slaves in Egypt than to die in the desert. This sounds to me like the cry of our hearts when we get backed up against impossible circumstances, where the desire for escape so often dwarfs the desire for freedom.

But as you probably know, although there was no way through for the Israelites in natural terms, their deliverance was waiting. God split the sea in two (bet they didn’t see that coming!) and they walked through on dry ground – holy ground. Not only that, but their attackers were drowned in the same event that was orchestrated for the Israelites’ destruction.

Because of their hardship – not in spite of it – they got to see God move. And because of my son’s and mine, I have too. So far my deliverance has been one of the heart, rather than of circumstances (although I did get to talk to my son on the phone for the first time in about a year, which felt as miraculously wonderful as the parting of the sea). My understanding of God and His ability to save has been transformed in a pretty dramatic way and I am downright excited to see what lies ahead. I’m pretty sure the enemy is kicking himself for cornering us because it pretty much backfired. I’m thinking that’s something he’s going to have to get used to.

What are your impossible circumstances? May I humbly suggest that you are standing on holy ground? What the enemy has meant for evil, God has meant for good; to grow your heart into a deeper understanding of His love and power and to thwart the enemy’s plans for your life. Press into Him with all your strength; your deliverance is at hand.

You Make Me Brave by Amanda Cook