“Why are you crying to me?”

Shortly after miraculously delivering his people from Egypt, God told Moses to tell the people to turn back and camp by the Red Sea. Moses obeyed and the people turned back and camped by the Red Sea. Then, just as God had said, Pharaoh chased after them with 600 chariots of Egypt. Exodus 14:10 says that as Pharaoh and his army approached, the Israelites “were terrified and cried out to the LORD.”

In anger they turned to Moses and accused him of bringing them out into the wilderness only to die at the hand of the Egyptians. They reminded Moses how when they were still in Egypt they had told him to leave them as slaves, and told him that they would rather be slaves than dead! (Compare this statement with American founding father Patrick Henry’s famous quote, “Give me liberty or give me death!”)

At this point Moses did what any good leader would do in such a situation – he spoke to the people and tried to encourage them. In Exodus 14:13-14, he told them,

“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, in the next verse God speaks to Moses directly, and in a tone of rebuke, asks him,

"Why are you crying out to me?”

This question makes it clear that, even though there is no mention of it in the story, after encouraging the people to trust in God, Moses had himself gone to God and cried out for help! But what is amazing about this situation is God’s response. I mean, if ever there was a situation where crying out to God seemed like the appropriate response, this was it! But in God’s eyes, Moses’ prayer was inappropriate! We find out why as God continues:

“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.”

As amazing as it seems, God was rebuking Moses for praying when what he should have done was part the Red Sea and go forward! Now think about that for a moment! How many of us do you suppose would have thought to, or for that matter had the faith to do that? And yet that is precisely what God was expecting Moses to have done! Really, what God was doing was expecting Moses to grow up.

God had already given Moses “The staff of God” and empowered him to do miraculous things with it, and now God was expecting Moses to rise to the occasion and, using the power God had given him, do whatever needed to be done to accomplish his mission. Even though most of us probably will never have to part a major body of water, this story still has tremendous application to each of us.

God expects all of his sons to grow up into “the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.” And that means at some point, God is going to expect us to do more than cry out to him – he’s going to expect us to rise up in boldness and power as a mature son, and do what needs to be done – however impossible it may seem.