So deep, so profound must be this respect for God’s holy presence that no one was even to touch the mountain. The people were to wait upon God to speak to Moses and hear the Lord’s words through the Lord’s servant.

The Christian worker is a strange breed. He or she wants it to look as if the work is terribly hard. In fact, the more difficult and strained the look, the better. Christian workers are notorious for what I call the “tired blood” look, better known as the overburdened and outdated “missionary image,” or, better stated, the exhausted “overburdened religious image.”

Verse 18 features a glimpse into Moses’ humanity and God’s patience. “Then Moses departed and returned to Jethro his father-in-law and said to him, ‘Please, let me go, that I may return to my brethren who are in Egypt, and see if they are still alive.’ And Jethro said to Moses, ‘Go in peace.'”

Each of us has his or her own wilderness cycle. Some struggle with a quiver full of small children at home. Others have no children. Your test may not be related to the home at all; it may be connected to your employment. Perhaps you’re wrestling with relationships; you’re abrasive and have difficulty with people.

Time has passed. If you read the previous passage in chapter 15 with a careful eye, you observe that it took them only three days to find the water they now enjoyed. But now it’s been a month and a half—more than forty days! I call that the test of time.

After God drowned Pharaoh’s entire army in the sea, for the first time in history Israel found herself living in the Egyptian desert, out in the open, completely on her own. The Hebrews had begun their journey to the land of Canaan. God had proven Himself faithful; the nation had walked through the sea on dry land. How awestruck they must have been!

Had we been in charge of the Red Sea project, we would have handled it differently. Our group of engineers would have pushed back that water a week in advance. We would have installed great, massive fans to dry out the land. We would have erected huge neon signs.

The instruction Moses gave was to be passed along from generation to generation. After he finished with these specific instructions, Scripture says, “And the people bowed low and worshiped. Then the sons of Israel went and did so; just as the LORD had commanded Moses and Aaron, so they did” (vv. 27–28).