part 3 of “after” series
Focus is important.
Back 5 or so years ago, I noticed that my daughter was possibly having some trouble seeing. When she was asked to read something or look at something she would get real close to it. She would also squint her eyes. At first, I didn’t really think anything about it. I thought that maybe she was just being silly. So I logged back in my mind as something to keep an eye on. One day she was with my parents and they wanted her to read something as well and she did the same thing. So I decided that it would be a good thing to take her to the eye doctor and see what was going on. I made the appointment and found that she needed glasses. I also decided that it would be best to check my son’s eyes out as well just to make sure he didn’t need them too - which he did. When they both put on their glasses, they both said similar things, but I remember what my son said. As soon as he put the glasses on he said, “Hey, I can see stuff!”
Focus is important. For this post, I want to spend time with the nation of Israel and how their focus was not where it needed to be.
I want to pick the story up in Exodus 14. God had already sent Moses to talk to Pharaoh and Pharaoh telling Moses that the Israelites could not leave. God sent plague after plague after plague to Egypt to make Pharaoh let His people go. Finally, Pharaoh let them leave. But soon after he did this he realized what he had done and wanted to change his mind. Pharaoh wanted the people back. Meanwhile, the Israelites were stuck at the Red Sea with nowhere to go. As they stood there at the Red Sea, they became frustrated and angry with Moses (and God) for bringing them out of Egypt. They were focused back there. They were focused on what was. They wanted to go back to normal. But while they were focused back there, God was doing something right in front of them. God was splitting the Red Sea for them. God was providing a way for them right before their eyes. But they were focused back there. The Bible says that it took all night for the Red Sea to part [1]. But in order to see it, they needed to change their focus from back there to forward. God was doing something in front of them - not behind them.
After they had cross the Red Sea, they found themselves in the desert and they began to complain to Moses (and God) again. They were once again focused back there in Egypt. They started telling Moses of all the food they had to eat [2]. They were probably also telling him how they had shelter and water and so on as well. So God tells Moses that He will provide bread in the morning to eat and quail in the evening to eat. But the Israelites were focused back there instead of forward because when the bread appeared on the ground of the desert they looked at each other and asked what it was [3]. They once again missed something that’s God was doing right in front of them because they were focused back there.
Fast forward some years - probably a lot of years - and Israel found themselves in captivity again this time in Babylon. But God was not going to just leave them there. He was going to rescue them again from their captors, but God also knew of their problem of looking back. So Isaiah tells the people what God said:
“This is what the Lord says— he who made a way through the sea, a path through the mighty waters, who drew out the chariots and horses, the army and reinforcements together, and they lay there, never to rise again, extinguished, snuffed out like a wick: ‘Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past.’” - Isaiah 43:16-18 NIV
Isaiah ran down for them what God had done back there. Isaiah reminded Israel of how God rescued them before. But then, Isaiah takes a sharp left and tells them to forget about all that. It is almost as if Isaiah is telling them to stop looking back and to look forward. Now Isaiah was not telling them to not remember what God had done for them. He was telling them to not dwell back there. He was telling them to remember, but keep their focus forward. The next verse says why:
“See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?” - Isaiah 43:19 NIV
God was trying to do a new thing for them and God knew of their problem of focusing back there. But God did not want them focusing back there, He wanted them focused forward so that they could see what was new.
God is doing something new right now in our lives. God is setting something up for us that is new and exciting. I have been told the words of the Bible are old and outdated (and that is more directed toward the Old Testament). But right now, in this season that we are in, you are not going to find more relevant words for us than the words of Isaiah 43:18-19. As I said at the start of this series, everyone is wondering when we are going back to normal. Essentially, we are asking “when are we going back there?” God does not want us to go back there. God wants us to go forward. Progress is forward not back there.
God knew that the nation of Israel would be looking for a split sea as His way of rescuing them and He didn’t want them to miss their rescue. God wants the same for us. God doesn’t want us to miss our rescue. God is trying to rescue us from habits, addictions, and ways of life that are hurting us. He wants us to stop looking back there and to perceive the new things that He is doing in our lives and in our world.
The new things that God has for us are forward - not back there. Where are you focused?
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[1] Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and all that night the Lord drove the sea back with a strong east wind and turned it into dry land. The waters were divided…” Exodus 14:21 NIV
[2] The whole Israelite community set out from Elim and came to the Desert of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month after they had come out of Egypt. In the desert the whole community grumbled against Moses and Aaron. The Israelites said to them, “If only we had died by the Lord’s hand in Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death.” - Exodus 16:1-3 NIV
[3] When the dew was gone, thin flakes like frost on the ground appeared on the desert floor. When the Israelites saw it, they said to each other, “What is it?” For they did not know what it was. - Exodus 16:14-15 NIV
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