Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

Moses answered the people, “Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the Lord will bring you today. The Egyptians you see today you will never see again. The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still.”
Then the Lord said to Moses, “Why are you crying out to me? Tell the Israelites to move on. Raise your staff and stretch out your hand over the sea to divide the water so that the Israelites can go through the sea on dry ground. I will harden the hearts of the Egyptians so that they will go in after them. And I will gain glory through Pharaoh and all his army, through his chariots and his horsemen. The Egyptians will know that I am the Lord when I gain glory through Pharaoh, his chariots and his horsemen.”
Then the angel of God, who had been traveling in front of Israel’s army, withdrew and went behind them. The pillar of cloud also moved from in front and stood behind them, coming between the armies of Egypt and Israel. Throughout the night the cloud brought darkness to the one side and light to the other side; so neither went near the other all night long.
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, and the Israelites went through the sea on dry ground, with a wall of water on their right and on their left.
The Egyptians pursued them, and all Pharaoh’s horses and chariots and horsemen followed them into the sea. During the last watch of the night the Lord looked down from the pillar of fire and cloud at the Egyptian army and threw it into confusion. He jammed the wheels of their chariots so that they had difficulty driving. And the Egyptians said, “Let’s get away from the Israelites! The Lord is fighting for them against Egypt.”
Then the Lord said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand over the sea so that the waters may flow back over the Egyptians and their chariots and horsemen.” Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and at daybreak the sea went back to its place. The Egyptians were fleeing toward it, and the Lord swept them into the sea. The water flowed back and covered the chariots and horsemen—the entire army of Pharaoh that had followed the Israelites into the sea. Not one of them survived.

• Exodus 14:13-28

So when the people broke camp to cross the Jordan, the priests carrying the ark of the covenant went ahead of them. Now the Jordan is at flood stage all during harvest. Yet as soon as the priests who carried the ark reached the Jordan and their feet touched the water’s edge, the water from upstream stopped flowing. It piled up in a heap a great distance away, at a town called Adam in the vicinity of Zarethan, while the water flowing down to the Sea of the Arabah (that is, the Dead Sea) was completely cut off. So the people crossed over opposite Jericho. The priests who carried the ark of the covenant of the Lord stopped in the middle of the Jordan and stood on dry ground, while all Israel passed by until the whole nation had completed the crossing on dry ground.

• Joshua 3:14-17

When the whole nation had finished crossing the Jordan, the Lord said to Joshua, “Choose twelve men from among the people, one from each tribe, and tell them to take up twelve stones from the middle of the Jordan, from right where the priests are standing, and carry them over with you and put them down at the place where you stay tonight.”
So Joshua called together the twelve men he had appointed from the Israelites, one from each tribe, and said to them, “Go over before the ark of the Lord your God into the middle of the Jordan. Each of you is to take up a stone on his shoulder, according to the number of the tribes of the Israelites, to serve as a sign among you. In the future, when your children ask you, ‘What do these stones mean?’ tell them that the flow of the Jordan was cut off before the ark of the covenant of the Lord. When it crossed the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off. These stones are to be a memorial to the people of Israel forever.”

• Joshua 4:1-7

Now when all the Amorite kings west of the Jordan and all the Canaanite kings along the coast heard how the Lord had dried up the Jordan before the Israelites until they had crossed over, their hearts melted in fear and they no longer had the courage to face the Israelites.

• Joshua 5:1

So Hamor and his son Shechem went to the gate of their city to speak to the men of their city. “These men are friendly toward us,” they said. “Let them live in our land and trade in it; the land has plenty of room for them. We can marry their daughters and they can marry ours. But the men will agree to live with us as one people only on the condition that our males be circumcised, as they themselves are. Won’t their livestock, their property and all their other animals become ours? So let us agree to their terms, and they will settle among us.”
All the men who went out of the city gate agreed with Hamor and his son Shechem, and every male in the city was circumcised.
Three days later, while all of them were still in pain, two of Jacob’s sons, Simeon and Levi, Dinah’s brothers, took their swords and attacked the unsuspecting city, killing every male. They put Hamor and his son Shechem to the sword and took Dinah from Shechem’s house and left.

• Genesis 34:20-26

Boilerplate

I’m Harold Dykstra.  I’m retired, but I go to food bank distributions all over Tracy and talk to people that need someone who will listen to their story.  My time is well spent.  A police lieutenant suggested that I write down the conversations that I had with an angel.  I did not know she was an angel at the time.  The angel, for a little over a year, indwelled a life-sized posable action figure my children bought me, so that I would not be perceived as travelling alone.  And in a way, she was training me for what I do while talking to the needy.  She probed my heart to find out what I believed and how I express love for others.  She changed my life.  Since she was a doll that had come to life, we came up with the term ‘other living.’  She was not a human, an animal, or even a plant, but she was definitely living, and very vibrant.  Oh, excuse me, angels have no gender, but the angel indwelled a doll named Bountiful Babs.  After seeing the angel in that form for over a year, I cannot see her in my mind in any other form.

This Week’s Question

In the last episode, Babs chose to see the things that God made rather than see something very impressive that man made out of one of God’s mountains, Mount Rushmore.

But after another successful sales call in Fargo, North Dakota, I decided to take Babs to the Mississippi River.

Babs asked, “You told me to wear my good walking shoes.  Where are we going?”

I asked her, “Do you remember the Mississippi River when we were in New Orleans, LA?”

Babs giggled, “Yes, the mighty Mississip’.  And we walked over it on a bridge near Memphis, TN.  And we drove over it in St. Louis, MO and in the Quad Cities in Iowa and Illinois.  It is a big river.  It is very impressive.”

I nodded, “I am glad you put it that way.  We are going to walk across it today.”

Babs scrunched her nose and gasped, “How?!  I mean, the river is huge.  Are we going to perform a miracle like Jesus did when He walked on water?”

I chuckled, “Not hardly!  We are not even going to get our feet wet, unless we slip off a rock.  That’s why I asked you to wear your best walking shoes today.  We are headed to the headwaters of the Mississippi River at Lake Itasca, Minnesota.  We can walk across the river, on stones that they have prepared for people to do that.  Then, we can find a picnic table and have a picnic and a Bible study.”

Babs was quivering with excitement.  “This is going to be fun!”

When we found our picnic table, neither of us falling into the river, Babs said, “It sounded more exciting than it really was.  It is hard to believe that this small bit of water becomes the mighty Mississip’ and not that much further downstream.”

I shrugged, “It get help from other streams.  The big helpers further south are the Missouri River and the Ohio River.  But there are a lot of streams and rivers that add up to the water that reaches New Orleans.  But we just walked across the Mississippi River on dry land.  Okay, reasonably dry stones.  What does that remind you of?”

Babs beamed, “Two things!  In Exodus, God parted the waters so that the people of Israel could cross on dry land.  And then, in Joshua, where God caused the Jordan to stop flowing during flood stage.  Most people don’t think about it, but they crossed on dry ground.”

I nodded, “When Morrie was little, he was doing as he normally did, disobeying his mother and me.  We were at the big reservoir north of Tracy.  They had drained the lake to make some repairs.  I think the Corps of Engineers were making adjustments to the spillway to control floods better, but that did not stop a major flood a few years ago.  But back to the story, the ground had been relatively dry for a week.  Morrie walked out to where there was water, but he did not get very far.  The land that seemed dry was a little dry crust over mud.  Morrie, only eight or nine years old, sunk up to his waste.  Of course, me being heavier, I had to be careful reaching him.  We found some wood.  I laid the wood down and crawled out to Morrie.  I pulled him out, but his shoes are still somewhere buried in the mud under the lake now.  It is one thing to stop the water, but another to make the ground dry enough to immediately walk on and herd livestock across, that would be another miracle all on its own.”

Babs giggled, “That is amazing.  But God handled the enemies of His Chosen People differently.”

I smiled, “Yes, He did.  Pharoah realized that he needed those slaves, especially after all those plagues had virtually ruined Egypt’s economy.  So, he started in pursuit.  The cloud and the angels held off the Egyptian chariots long enough for everyone to go across the sea.  And I believe that it really was the sea because of what happened next.  With the people safely across the sea, the Egyptians followed them, but as they got into the middle of the sea, their chariots bogged down in the mud and then the water crashed over them.  And divers have found chariot wheels preserved in the mud under the sea.  So, Moses stretched out his staff and the waters departed.  How did Joshua signal for God to stop the flow of the Jordan River, at flood stage no less?”

Babs said, “As soon as the priests stepped into the Jordan, the ground was dry beneath their feet.”

“Good answer,” I said.  “So, Joshua did not stretch out his staff.  Probably, Joshua having been the military leader since the exodus, he had a sword.  But now they had priests and the Ark of the Covenant.  The priests who carried the Ark were more representative of God’s power rather than Joshua doing anything.  And you mentioned that the enemies were dealt with differently.  In Exodus, the Egyptians were pursuing them before they ever started to move across the sea, but here, the later chapters of Numbers tell of the Israelites driving out the Canaanites from the east bank of the Jordan.  There were no enemy soldiers to follow them.  But word of Joshua’s victories went before him.  And then walking across the Jordan on dry ground made the Canaanites more frightened than ever.  That gave Joshua plenty of time to gather twelve stones from the bottom of the river and create a memorial.  And, what do the Israelites do instead of attacking Jericho after they get across the river?”

Babs said, “1. 2. 3.” Then we sang, “I don’t know.”

We laughed, but I said, “I think you do know.  They celebrate the Passover and Joshua had all the men become circumcised.  What happens when grown men are circumcised?”

Babs blew out a long breath, “Well, I have no personal experience with that, but when they circumcised the men of Shechem after Dinah had been raped, they were still sore after three days.  They were in no shape to fight, and Simeon and Levi killed them.”

I nodded, “So, here Joshua has so much faith in God that he makes the entire people of Israel vulnerable by having all the men become circumcised.  And what about his enemies?”

Babs said, “They heard how the waters dried up in the Jordan for them, and they were afraid.”

I nodded, “And that gave the Israelites a chance to heal from the circumcision.  Of course, they had already talked to Rahab, the harlot.  She said that everyone knew of them crossing the Red Sea.  They were already frightened before they crossed the Jordan.  Then, more healing and strengthening as they marched around the city of Jericho for seven days.  And then, God performed more miracles to take the city of Jericho but spare the family of Rahab.  I have heard of selective tornadoes that wreck one house and then skip the next, but a selective earthquake to cause the walls to fall everywhere except one selected person’s house that was part of the wall.  That was yet another miracle.”

Babs started giggling, “But walking across the Mississippi River at the headwaters on dry stones wasn’t a miracle at all, but I am glad I have you to see a Bible lesson in something that was really fun to do.”

I held Babs’ hand, “Being on this journey with you has been very helpful for me too.”

Then Babs asked, “But I have read about how people try to place the crossing in a smaller sea.  Why do they do that?”

I shrugged, “Being an engineer, I might have a better chance of understanding omnipotence and infinity.  Some people see those big miracles like crossing the Red Sea on dry land and Noah’s flood as being too big to believe, so they try to make it a local flood and crossing a lake instead of a Sea.  Why?  They have a small god instead of the infinite omnipotent God.  Nothing is too big for God.  He created everything after all.  And besides, they have not found chariot wheels in the mud beneath those little lakes and such.  And why panic when you see the Egyptians coming or the waters start to rise?  With the flood, you just move to higher ground.  No need for an Ark.  And with the exodus, just walk around the body of water.  No, God performed those miracles because He is all powerful and that much power scares people, but oddly, it does not scare them enough to obey God.”

We looked into each other’s eyes, and we laughed.

Babs asked, “Where to next?”

I sighed, “There is a small company in the middle of nowhere Minnesota, then the Twin Cities, Duluth, then the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, then the thumb, Indiana, and northern Illinois and then home.  This was always my shortest sales run.  Back when the children were small, we would try to have some sort of vacation thrown in somewhere.  Once my wife got too sick, it was the annual barrage of tests.  But if I miss anyone, the Autumn trip starts by retracing our steps, back into the Northeast.  Why do you ask?”

Babs smiled, “I like to know that you have a plan.  God’s plan sometimes trumps our own plan, but without a plan, we are simply adrift.  And I have learned enough about you to know that when God throws you a curve, you have the faith to accept the challenge and keep going.  I look forward to Nowhere, Minnesota.”

I thought of correcting her in that the town was not called that, but she would figure that out soon enough.

Credits

All these conversations remind me of my conversations with my wife.  We would talk about anything and everything.  And most of the time, it sounded like a discussion in a Sunday school class.

We took a group of Webelos scouts on a campout at Strom Thurmond Reservoir when they were draining the lake to make room for future wet weather, and to do some dam repairs.  The boy who always knew so much that he never had to follow instructions sunk into the mud, but the ground looked perfectly safe.  This was not quicksand, just ground that would take weeks before we could walk on it.  Luckily, there was a rotting picnic table near our campsite, and we “borrowed” the boards for the table top to crawl on to reach him.  When we rescued him, his shoes remained in the mud, probably because he did not tie the laces.  With one boy barefooted, the activities were curtailed.  We did not wish to punish everyone else for the misdeed of one, but we did not have enough leaders to keep him out of trouble while other leaders led the boys in a hike.

My wife and I visited Minnesota a couple of times, each time in July.  When I was moving the family to Pittsburgh, we ran well into the night.  We had no idea that the lakes between Fargo, North Dakota and Minneapolis, Minnesota were favorite wedding destinations during the month of July, and hotels were booked solid.  Oddly, our second trip to Minnesota (my fourth, since I interviewed for two different jobs there) was in July, to a wedding.  We had reservations well in advance for that trip.

And the photo above is of the Mississippi River at flood stage in the greater Quad Cities area, from the Iowa side of the river.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.