Lord of Victory and Healer of the Broken,
You drown the armies that enslaved us.
The horse and rider vanish beneath the sea.
You silence the threats that chained us in fear.
You are our strength, our song, our salvation.
We should never forget Your power,
but our hearts are weak,
and our memories are short.
No sooner do we lift our voices in praise
than we stumble into wilderness thirst.
Our mouths sing hallelujah,
but our lips just as quickly grumble.
Three days without water
feels heavier than four hundred years of slavery.
The cup we find is bitter, undrinkable,
and bitterness spills not just from the ground
but from our own hearts.
O God, we confess
we are no better than Israel.
We see Your miracles,
yet doubt Your mercy.
We taste Your deliverance,
yet complain about Your provision.
We carry freedom in our hands,
but chains still rattle in our souls.
We would rather long for Egypt
than trust You in the desert.
But You, O Lord, reveal the tree.
You show the wood that heals.
When it touches what is bitter,
the poison is turned to sweetness.
When it meets our thirst,
life flows where death reigned.
That tree points beyond Moses
it points to the cross of Christ,
where all our bitterness,
all our sin,
all our rebellion
is swallowed up in mercy.
Have mercy, Lord.
Take the waters of our division,
our hatred, our lies,
our self-serving worship,
and touch them with the cross.
Turn what is poisonous into pure.
Turn what is foul into fresh.
Turn what is empty into overflowing.
Do not let our songs die in the wilderness.
Teach us to obey when the springs are few.
Teach us to trust when the cup is bitter.
Teach us to wait when the way is long.
Lead us to Elim
to rest, to shade, to abundance
but only after we have learned
that You alone are the LORD who heals.
O Bridegroom, prepare Your Bride.
Strip away every spot and stain.
Make us holy, make us ready,
so that when You return,
You find not a people bound by Egypt,
but a people singing on the far shore
redeemed, cleansed,
and made whole by the Lamb.
In the name of Jesus Christ,
the greater Deliverer,
the Tree that heals the nations,
the Cross that turns bitterness into salvation,
Amen.