Red Sea Rules 10 God-Given Strategies for Difficult Times

; CHAPTER ONE: ;Red Sea Rule 1 ;Realize that God means for you to be where you are. ;Now the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: "Speak to the children of Israel, that they turn and camp before Pi Hahiroth, between Migdol and the sea, opposite Baal Zephon." ; -Exodus 14:1-2 ; ; Cul-de-Sacs ;The sea was before them, Pharaoh's hosts behind them, and the mountains around them. And all this, be it observed, permitted and ordered of God. ; -C. H. Mackintosh ;Reba Robinson lay awake night after night, tense and tired in her little room ; in Starkville, Mississippi.1 Her imagination raced out of control as her fingers ; clung to an old T-shirt that had once belonged to her son and still carried ; the scent of his cologne. He was confronting death in some exotic locale, though ; she didn't know where or what for, how or by whom. ;Dillon was a marine assigned to a covert commando unit. His assignments were so secretive that even his mother could not be told the time or location of his missions. ;But her mother's instincts told her when he was in harm's way, and during those times she fervently prayed for Dillon day and night. She was undoubtedly praying the night he swam ten miles from a submarine to the forbidden coast of a hostile country. She was praying the night he parachuted behind enemy lines from a high-flying aircraft. She was praying the day he jumped from a chopper through a hail of bullets, his eyes blinded with tears, to retrieve the body of his fallen compatriot. She was praying the night a terrorist stuck a gun in his face and pulled the trigger; and perhaps it was her prayers that caused the gun to jam, giving Dillon the split second he needed to "resolve the problem" and escape. ;She prayed through nocturnal tears and terrors and torments. ;When Dillon finally returned home, he was a hero whose bravery could never be explained, declassified, or honored. He couldn't discuss his exploits or seek help in processing his traumas. He tried making the transition from action hero to typical guy, but life slowed to a snail's pace in his little hometown. He began frequenting the local bars, trying not to remember what he couldn't forget. ;Reba prayed on. ;Like Dillon's mother, we sometimes go through prolonged periods of pain and pressure. Trapped by circumstances. Hurting. Afraid. Facing impossible odds. Traversing long, dark valleys. ;Some circumstances are beyond our control, and something as simple as the ringing of a phone, a card in the mail, or a knock on the door can push us off the wire. We fall into a world of worry. Someone defined worry as a small trickle of fear that meanders through the mind, cutting a channel into which all other thoughts flow. ;The preacher John R. Rice said, "Worry is putting question marks where God has put periods." ;Bishop Fulton J. Sheen called worry "a form of atheism, for it betrays a lack of faith and trust in God." ;But for some of us, worry seems as inherent as breathing. ;We are, after all, likened in the Bible to sheep. I have a small flock of sheep (well, three of them) that live contentedly in our extended backyard. They're well fenced and well fed, and they have little to fear. But they sometimes fear anyway and can bolt in sheer panic at nothing more than a rabbit jumping through the grass. ;That isn't a quality the Lord admires in His sheep. He wants us to say, "Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil . . ."Morgan, Robert J. is the author of 'Red Sea Rules 10 God-Given Strategies for Difficult Times' with ISBN 9780785266495 and ISBN 0785266496.