A Path Not Known - One Year Devotions for Men
Your road led through the sea, your pathway through the mighty waters—a pathway no one knew was there! - Psalm 77:19
Adolf Hitler believed that the European Jews were diabolical, that they were evil incarnate, part of a great conspiracy behind all the troubles of Europe. So he planned their extermination. He called it the “Final Solution.” At first the Jews were rounded up into labor camps where they were systematically starved and worked to death. The archway over the entrance to the infamous Auschwitz camp bore the words “Arbeit Machts Frei”—”Work makes free.” But in Nazi code “makes free” meant “kills.” As the Allied forces were strengthened by the entrance of the United States of America into the War, the Nazis realized that they were facing possible defeat. So they expedited the killings by herding the Jews into gas chambers. It is estimated that 67% of European Jews were exterminated by the Nazis.
Still, many escaped through the help of a network of incredibly brave, committed individuals who managed to whisk the terrified Jews to safety. They were hidden under the noses of the Nazis and then, under cover of darkness, they were led along highways and byways known only to the rescuers, from one safe house to another, until finally they reached safety.
Psalm 77 was written by Asaph in the depths of despair. He couldn’t sleep, and he couldn’t pray. He couldn’t get a response from God; he couldn’t get answers to his questions. He even came to the conclusion that it was his fate “that the blessings of the most High have changed to hatred” (Ps. 77:10). But then he recalled the great events of Jewish history. And no Jew of his time would think on such matters without contemplating the Exodus from Egypt and the miraculous escape through the Red Sea. Asaph remembered, “Your road led through the sea, your pathway through the mighty waters—a pathway no one knew was there!” (77:19).
It is always good for the Lord’s people in all situations to remember that, when the night is dark and all hope is lost, God knows a path of rescue and mercy that no one else knows is there. Many of God’s people have lived in less dramatic circumstances than those marching through the waters of the Red Sea or the terrors of the Holocaust. They can testify to having been led through the dangers and the despair by the unerring hand of God. Always, when God is leading, the path not known leads eventually to the safe house of his loving embrace.
For Further Study: Psalm 77
Excerpted from The One Year Devotions for Men, Copyright ©2000 by Stuart Briscoe. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers. All rights reserved.
For more from Stuart Briscoe, please visit TellingtheTruth.org.
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