At a time when an approaching; tropical hurricane threatened to do great damage to a community, a Christian Scientist's thoughts turned to the Biblical account of Moses and the children of Israel, who, fleeing from the Egyptians, found themselves with the Red Sea before them. Moses prayed, but the answer to his prayer was not immediately understandable, for we are told that a strong east wind blew all that night (Ex. 14:21). Had Moses believed that this strong east wind was a destructive hurricane, he might have been tempted to believe that God had forsaken him, that he must have mistaken God's directions or he would not have found himself and the Israelites in such a dangerous place. But his faith in God never wavered. To him God was the only I AM; hence he saw God's hand in all things and refused to acknowledge any power apart from Him. He knew God had not led them to destruction, but to safety, even though the evidence of the physical senses testified to obstruction, confusion, fear, and certain annihilation.
As the Christian Scientist pondered the faith and courage of this servant of God in the face of such overwhelming odds, Moses' prayer at the Red Sea, as recorded by Josephus, historian of the Hebrew people, came to her thought: "O Lord,...we are in a helpless place, but still it is a place that thou possesseth; still the sea is thine,...and the sea...if thou commandest it, will become dry land. Nay, we might escape by a flight through the air, if thou shouldst determine we should have that way of salvation." Moses' humility and faith in God were so complete that there was nothing in his thinking to obstruct the miracle of grace or to hide God's plan of salvation for His people—for those who looked to Him, however fearfully, for help.
It was through his complete faith in God that Moses was able to turn from the evidence of the physical senses and the cries of the people and to hear God's voice and see His plan of salvation. God made plain to Moses his part in the miracle of grace, telling him to stretch his hand, the symbol of spiritual power, over the sea; and the strong east wind which blew all that night parted the sea, and the dry land appeared. A course of procedure was made evident right through the midst of apparent obstruction, destruction, and confusion.
