Exodus 14: God proves himself in the hard times

In Exodus 14 we see God tell Moses that everything he and his people are going through is all so that the "Egyptians will know that I am God" (Ex 14:4). In the hard times we must trust that God will bring us through and, when he does, it will glorify him.

A bit later, in verse 7, Pharaoh "took siz hundred of the best chariots" (Ex 14:7) to attack the Israelites. In the natural, this would have looked dead scary, but in the spiritual it was nothing to fear as God was going to protect his people. We need to take our eyes off the natural and lift them to the spiritual reality of the situation: we serve a mighty God.

However, the Israelites did see it in the natural and "were terrified and cried out to God" (Ex 14:10). Why didn't they remember God's saving them from the plagues before? We need to learn from their mistake and remember God's acts of the past and not worry about what's going on right now. By focusing on God's faithfulness in the past, we can face crises with confidence rather than fear and complaining.