Joy and Strength (Christian life and music)

When God brought His people out of the wilderness into the land that He promised them, they were in crisis.  Pharaoah's army behind them, the Red Sea in front of them - they were trapped!  They were trapped in the natural , that is.   They were stuck between a proverbial rock and a hard place with no way out.   Enter God. Ever feel stuck?  Do you want escape from a situation from which there simply is no escape?   Why did God allow this mess to happen to the Jews?  He led them right into it!  He could have confused the troops and sent them off course, but He didn't.  He could have led the Jews another way out of the desert that didn't bring them to the Red Sea, but He didn't. God had a bigger and better way to reveal Himself to them.  He wanted to show them just how much He could do for them.  He defied the forces of nature because He controls all nature!   God parted the Red Sea for them to cross through into the Promised Land.  That was an act of God! Stuck?  God says

If you wait until you feel like obeying God, you never will. The feelings follow the obedience. This modus operandi works when we obey the Lord about anything. Feelings have little to do with obeying Jesus.  The majority of God's people gave in to their "feelings" of fear and dread at the end of wandering in the desert for 40 years.  Finally they could see the end of their long journey!  All they had to do was cross over into the Promised Land and they would receive all that God had promised them. What held them back?  Fear.   There are giants in the land! They chose to focus on what could go wrong, what may or may not happen if they entered in - those giants were huge!  What if they killed us?  What if they enslaved us?  They must have painted all the worst-case scenarios and they let those "what ifs" keep them from moving forward into the land of plenty - the land flowing with milk and honey.  Joshua and Caleb saw things differently.  They knew that God was w