GOING BACKWARDS TO GO FORWARD!

In studying in Exodus 14 (1-4)3 this morning, here is what I read: Then the Lord said to Moses. Tell the Israelites to turn back and encamp....They are to encamp by the sea..Pharoah will think, "The Israelites are wandering around the land in confusion, hemmed in by the desert" And I will harden Pharoah's heart and he will pursue them. But I will gain glory for myself through Pharoah and all his army, and the Egyptians will know that I am the Lord." So the Israelites did this.

If I would have been Moses the last thing I would ever have wanted to hear or expected to hear from God was "turn around and go back and face Pharoah again", and it would have been the last thing on earth I ever wanted to do. I bet he sure hated to tell that one to the Israelite people.

I believe Moses and everybody else wanted to get as far away from Egypt and Pharoah and his armies as soon as they possibly could.

Don't you think Pharoah had to be the last person on earth that Moses wanted to face again but scripture says "So the Israelites did this" no matter how illogical, unconventional or unpopular the idea was.

But God was not being unkind. No, it was for their good and His glory that He commanded them to do this. It was so they could truly put the past in the past once and for all and move on. It was so that they could be free to live the rest of their lives without fear that Pharoah was going to show up and enslave them all over again.

Sometimes in order to set us free from our past it is necessary for God to turn us around, send us back and face some people we'd rather never see again. What we may see as a step backwards in the wrong direction is actually a step forward to free us so that we may truly live life as God intends for us to live.

Joseph had to face his painful past when his brothers arrived in Egypt.
Moses had to face his painful past when God at the burning bush told him to go back to Egypt.
Elijah had to face his painful past when God told him to turn around and go back where he had come from and reengage in the battle going on.

But the wonderful thing about God sending us back is that He never sends us back without Him. Wherever He commands us to go, He is there, with us all the time all the way.

I have personally experienced this in my life. A family member had sexually abused me and so I kept my distance from him until I was 37 years old, having become a Christian at the age of 30. One day God began telling me I needed to ask the man's forgiveness for not being the Christian sister I should have been which is certainly nothing I ever wanted or intended to do. But I knew God was right. I had not been the Christian sister I should have been. So God sends him to my door and I ask him in and tell him how sorry I am for not being the Christian sister I should have been to him and I tell him I forgive him. He walks out of my house without saying a word. Three days later I am sitting in church at Christmas time, listening to Christmas music being played and God says "Go lead him to Christ". So in obedience, I went back to him after being pretty rejected a few days earlier and I shared Christ with him. The result: He asked Jesus Christ into his life and said "Terry, I knew if you could forgive me, God could." And never ever again was the path a problem between us. I truly did love him and he loved me with the love that only Jesus Christ can bring.

So by going back and dealing with my past, I truly was set free and so was my relative. God is so good! I am so glad this part of my past no longer brings me any pain whatsoever.