God does not want us to be strong. God wants to be our strength.

Perhaps a better way to put it is this: God wants us to be very strong, but in a very different way than we usually want. We often want to be strong in a way that makes us look good. God wants us to be strong in a way that He looks good. In a fallen world, these two concepts often disagree.

Now, if we had no sin, our desires and those of God would be in perfect harmony. We would only want to be strong in the strength that God provides (1 Pet 4:11). But since we have sin, there is conflict between the strength we want to have and the strength God wants to give us.

As a result, we can find ourselves deeply discouraged by the same limitations and adversities that God has designed to cultivate in us a strong, courageous, and liberating faith.

Caught in weakness

In Exodus 12, the people of Israel had been miraculously freed from slavery, and taken out of Egypt by Moses. And in Exodus 14, Israel had camped next to the Red Sea, in a vulnerable and probably disconcerting position. God had purposely instructed Moses to take Israel to that place where he had determined to humiliate Pharaoh and the Egyptians dramatically one last time. Another point of exclamation to put in the declaration to Egypt and the world that would resonate forever in human history: “I am the Lord” (Ex. 14: 4).

But the Israelites did not understand God’s purposes. There was probably a lot of gossip about what they were supposed to be camping on what looked like a dead end. This escalated to panic when the army of the pharaoh appeared and cornered them against the sea. It seemed to be the worst scenario: die by the sword or die drowned.

And as many of us would feel, the people were scared and angry. They shouted to Moses: “Were there no graves in Egypt to bring us to death in the desert? Why have you treated us this way, taking us out of Egypt?” (Ex. 14:11).

They were trapped in a weak place, a place designed for them by God.

Weaknesses to learn where strength really is

Moses’ response to the people full of panic was: “Do not fear; stand firm and see the salvation that the Lord will do today for you. Because the Egyptians whom they have seen today will never see them again. The Lord will fight for you while you remain silent” (Ex. 14: 13-14).

And of course, he fought for them. While stopping the Egyptian army with the column of fire, he opened a dry road for the Israelites through the Red Sea. He then released the Egyptians, who persecuted Israel with all their forces offshore, which swallowed them.

And on the other side, Moses and the people burst into a song that we still sing today:

“My strength and my song are the Lord, and it has been for me salvation; this is my God, and I will Glorify Him, the God of my father, and I will exalt Him” (Ex. 15: 2).

When the Egyptian army appeared, God could have made Israel a nation of Samsons. The Holy Spirit could have come upon all and could have killed Egypt with a few ass jaws. Why didn’t God do that?

Well, do you remember Samson? When God gave Samson the power to defeat a thousand Philistines alone, what was the song that Samson sang next?

“With the jawbone of an ass, heaps on heaps, with the jawbone of an ass I have killed 1,000 men” (Judges 15:16).

“I have killed.” There is no hymn to God from Samson after any of his exploits, and he did not survive the one for which he is probably mentioned as a model of faith in Hebrews 11:32. God was Samson’s strength, but Samson never really recognized him.

God wanted Israel to understand that He was his strength and his salvation so that He would become his song. That is why he put them in a place of weakness and helplessness.

The Lord is our strength

The exodus was in the Old Testament the greatest prefigure of the gospel of Jesus Christ. God frees us all as helpless children, caught between the forces of evil and the wrath of God. Jesus is our deliverer, and his cross and resurrection our liberation.

But the exodus, along with the other biblical stories of redemption, also reminds us that God purposefully designs our places of weakness and assigns them to us. When we feel trapped in them, we can be deeply discouraged, in panic, and even angry. God’s purposes in such experiences are generally unclear at first. Things look as if He had made a big mistake, or is capricious. But is not.

The truth is that, as sinful people, we really do not understand what it means for God to be our strength and our salvation until we are placed in a place weak enough where He is our only option. At first, this does not feel like great mercy, but later, sometimes much later, we discover that it was a gift of mercy without measure. And then, God really becomes our song.