Leaps of Faith

DAILY BYTE

Throughout this week, we have been exploring the challenging journey of forgiveness. Forgiving others and ourselves means that we must learn to develop deep trust in the faithfulness of God. In the scripture from Exodus for today, Moses illustrates such a leap of faith beautifully. God tells Moses to stretch out his hand over the sea – to do a ridiculous, irrational thing. As he does it he dares to leave his heart unprotected, fully vulnerable. He is susceptible to looking like a brokenhearted fool, if the crazy scheme he heard from God doesn’t work.

But, we know the story. It is the theme of the entire scripture of God, as again and again we turn away. And again and again we are forgiven. We also see daily it in our own lives of forgiving and being forgiven. The waters part! God is faithful and makes a way for people to reach new life, walking together tediously and patiently through chaos and unpredictability on the way to a new land. It is the promised land away from imprisonment and slavery and closer to a new life of freedom in the heartland of God.

This land of South Africa is a land of truth and reconciliation. It is clearly an imperfect, often rocky, dirty, and treacherous land, but this is not just a land made of dirt and clay. In this land, we are able to live with freedom and hope through God’s forgiveness for all of us. We are made able to open our hearts and be vulnerable and reach for greater life than our imaginations can contain. An old Arab proverb states: Throw your heart out in front of you, and run ahead to catch it. Throw your heart out in front of you this week, as we learn, as fallible human beings to forgive and be forgiven by other people and by an immeasurably loving God. We do this with the promise of scripture that God is faithful and will part the waters of our struggle, leading us to a new promise of life in the heart of God.

PRAY AS YOU GO

We return at the end of this week to The Lord’s Prayer, where we began on Monday. As you pray this, keep in your heart that this is the prayer Jesus taught us to pray. This is the prayer that the body of Christ as been praying since some of the earliest stages of the church. As people who have been forgiven, we join together in this prayer with everyone who has prayed it in history. We are not alone. On the contrary, we are forgiven and we learn to forgive, as we join together with all people created and loved by God.

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come; thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory for ever and ever. Amen.

SCRIPTURE READING

Exodus 14:19-22

The angel of God who was going before the Israelite army moved and went behind them; and the pillar of cloud moved from in front of them and took its place behind them. It came between the army of Egypt and the army of Israel. And so the cloud was there with the darkness, and it lit up the night; one did not come near the other all night. Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea. The LORD drove the sea back by a strong east wind all night, and turned the sea into dry land; and the waters were divided. The Israelites went into the sea on dry ground, the waters forming a wall for them on their right and on their left.