Just Some Thoughts
Do you remember Exodus 17? The Israelites fled Egypt only to end up suffering in the dryness of the desert. We get the entire journey in a very small number of words so imagine a little with me. They were torn away from all the stability their lives had known. Never mind the kind of life it was. They were on foot. They carried ALL their belongings. Everyone was there, ALL their population (including babies, elderly, and sick). Every single animal they owned was there. The winters were cold the summers were very hot. The sand blew, burned, irritated and this is to say nothing of the wind. Can you imagine? I get tired walking up a flight of stairs. This kind of journey begs an obvious question: How long did it take them to complain? Well, quicker than you can say pooper-scooper. But in all fairness it was a desert. Can you imagine being 70 and taking a short 250 mile walk across the Sinai desert? But wait! What’s that?
HOLY GILIGAN BATMAN! YOU MEAN THEY DIDN’T TAKE THE SHORT–CUT?
Nope, it took a bit longer. But there were some valid reasons for the detour. We can read history and know what some of them were. The Israelites, for example, were not nearly strong enough to take on the Philistines who were directly in the path of the short-cut. And they got to see some great scenery… umm, I mean they had a lot of time to get to know the mother-in-law… uhh… well there was… the weather… oh wait. Ok, well the bottom line is that they were learning something in the journey… well, most of them were… uhh… some of them… well, there was an opportunity to learn. Oh well, the bottom line is that God did some amazing things for them and there were some reasons for taking the long way around. I guess sometimes the long way around seems endless. Sometimes it seems as if God has played a mean trick on us. We might even see some of the same words roll off our very own lips: “Is the Lord among us or not?” It certainly applies for us in Texas, right?
We are in a dry time. According to my research the Trinity Aquifer in some areas has dropped 80 feet this summer! Lake Travis is 29 feet below its normal August level! Only 6 (SIX!) counties in Texas do NOT have a burn ban in effect right now. So far, 3.5 million acres of Texas have burned since November. Only 8% of the corn crop is good. Half of the cotton crop is gone. Agricultural losses are at $5 billion and climbing. This has been the hottest summer in Texas, ever. It may have been the hottest summer in the history of the USA. It seems the words of Job find some application; much to our chagrin: “But when I looked for good, evil came; and when I waited for light, darkness came” (30:26).
The good news for us is that God is doing some amazing things right under our noses! There is no drought that conquers God. There is no path that is useless to God! Rejoice, the rains will arrive and it won’t be forty years from now…
Mike
