The Redeemer Is Our Guide

“With your unfailing love you lead the people you have redeemed.In your might, you guide them to your sacred home.”

Exodus 15:13

The first part of Exodus 15 is a song in which Moses and the Israelites celebrate their deliverance from Egypt. They praise the Lord for his superior strength and victory.

But this song also looks ahead to what is yet to come. Deliverance from Egypt was wonderful, but it still leaves the Israelites out in the middle of nowhere, vulnerable to attack and to the elements. Verse 13 adds to the celebration the fact that God’s help doesn’t end at the Red Sea. Rather, God continues to lead and guide his people all the way to his “sacred home.”

When I think about my relationship with the Lord, I am eternally grateful for the time he first saved me from sin and death as I put my faith in him. But I am also grateful for the fact that God didn’t leave me at that point to muddle through my life until the moment of death, when I would be beamed up to his presence. Rather, God has been faithful to me again and again as my leader and guide. To be sure, there have been times when I have rejected God’s guidance. But his unfailing love has outlasted my hardness of heart. He continues to guide my steps if I pay attention to him.

QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION: How has God guided you since the time you first put your trust in him? What helps you to pay better attention to God’s guidance?

PRAYER: O Lord, even as you first redeemed and then guided Israel, so you have done with me. Thanks be to you, O God, for your faithfulness as my leader. Thanks for your patience when I am slow to follow. Thanks for your forgiveness when I reject your path. Thanks for reaching out to me and putting me back on “the straight and narrow.”

Help me, dear Lord, to pay better attention to you, to listen to the whisper of your Spirit, to follow you wherever you lead me. Amen.