“To Him who divided the Red Sea asunder, His love endures forever, and brought Israel through the midst of it, His love endures forever.”
(Psalm 136:13-14 NIV)
Two days ago we were staff-retreating and we set out to begin the day with corporate prayer. I had settled into my chair and started praying but the Lord sent me to pace instead. It was a smallish room and after just a few lengths of it, He stopped me still and said “You’re in a hallway.” I opened my eyes; standing a few feet from the front door and a few more feet from the living area and the rest of our staff. “I know” I said, as one does when God states the obvious. “You’re in a hallway.” He repeated it, painstakingly, the way He does for us slow learners. I realized we were no longer talking about a physical reality but a spiritual one.
I had been praying into the subject of my devotional that morning: staying the course and finishing strong. I was envisioning the Israelites and their long and arduous journey. Imagine the strength it must took to stay in step with Yahweh for forty full years! God’s revelation about a hallway intercepted with my soul – I pictured the throng of God’s people passing through a canyon with walls of rock towering above them on either side. How far could an individual follower see with a million people in front of them and a million more behind them? They would have had to just keep putting one foot in front of the other; unable to see what was in front of them and too transformed to return the way they’d came.
The canyon walls faded away and I was again considering the drywall and tile of the resort room hallway and my own implications. I recognize that I am moving through a hallway, too. A long corridor leading from one season to the next. Hallways aren’t the same as waiting rooms; this is not the time to settle in with a magazine or to surf the wait away on a smartphone. Hallways take us places. We move through them with efficiency and purpose, often carrying important things from one stage of life to another.
I began to connect this thought to my devotions. Work in the hallway. Serve in the hallway. Praise in the hallway. Walk in love through this hallway.
My prayers moved from information processing to application and straight-up request. Lord, give me grace in this hallway. Patience. Strength. Persistence. Fortitude.
I had to look up that last word; it fell right from heaven into my mouth. Fortitude: courage in pain and adversity. (oxfordlanguages.com)
I thought about pain and adversity and pressure on all sides as hallways sometimes insist. The next thought came to me forcibly; a hallway can be a birth canal if we cooperate.
Consider again our Israelites. Yes, they crossed through canyons of rock but they also walked through hallways of water on their way into Canaan. They were transformed by their trust in that season, stepping out into the Red Sea and then the Jordan River; they were birthed from slaves to sons and daughters.
I recognize my hallway and I’m renewed with purpose for walking, praising and working my way through it. I wonder what might be born on the other side and I’m excited again to stay faithful until I fully possess the land.
“My steps have held to your paths; my feet have not stumbled.”
(Psalm 17:5 NIV)
Lord, You are faithful and You are sovereign. You order our steps just as You did for the Isrealites. We are on a journey from slavery to sonship and You escort us every single step of the way. May we learn to see our hallways as birth canals and decide to cooperate with our best effort. We long to be transformed by Your presence and promise to stick to the path You’ve appointed. Amen.
<3 A friend sent me this song a few months ago
and I can’t get enough of it. <3