You may have heard in geometry class that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. But in our real life experience this is not always true. Even if there is a straight road between where you are right now and where you want to go this is not always the path that you might choose. You might take another route because it is faster — a faster speed limit, less traffic lights and congestion, less construction. You might take another route because you know that you will never get there if you went straight because you have been watching the weather and there is a lake-effect blizzard in the way. Likewise, you may have a good idea of where God is leading you and be wondering why you find yourself currently unemployed, underemployed, or simply doing work you do not enjoy. In real-life the shortest distance between two points is often a zig-zag. So I want to help you see some reasons God might do that in our lives and how He encourages us on that journey and what God is doing while we are taking it. Normally it would only take 8 to 10 days to travel from Goshen, where the people of Israel were living in Egypt, to the Promised Land. Instead, God took them in the other direction in a major zig-zag. Thus this passage (Exodus 13:17-22 plus a couple verses from Exodus 14:1-31) will help us to answer those questions.
I have borrowed generously from Donald Sunukjian’s Invitation to Biblical Preaching for this sermon.
Recent Comments