Your Path Led through the Sea

By E. A. West and Jesse Burger

Your Path Led through the Sea chronicles a journey from shallow to deep waters, from quiet ponds and trickling streams to roaring rivers, thundering falls, and storm-tossed seas, which aim to bring the reader into a deeper spiritual understanding of life's tempests and storms from which flow those rivers of living water, deeper intimacy with God. Many Scripture references, hymns, and the insights of noted Christian authors, like light dancing on the surface of the deep, are scattered throughout these pages. If you choose to dive in, you will learn how God chooses to still the storm, to walk with you over boisterous waves, or, like Peter, draw you up and out of them. Even if God's path should lead you through the sea, his way through the mighty waters, he will part them, and you will not have to walk through them alone.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Resource Publications
• Release date: Oct 13, 2023
• ISBN: 9781666781519

E. A. West

E. A. West is a professor of nursing at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. Dr. West’s achievements include Nursing in Appalachia: History, Organization, and the Changing Culture of Care (2019) and a book chapter titled “Ethics & Integrity in Nursing Research” in Handbook on Ethics and Integrity in Scientific Research (2020).

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Your Path Led through the Sea

E. A. West

Illustrations by Jesse Burger

Your Path Led through the Sea

Copyright ©

2023

E. A. West. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers,

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Resource Publications

An Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers

199

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8

th Ave., Suite

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www.wipfandstock.com

paperback isbn: 978-1-6667-8149-6

hardcover isbn: 978-1-6667-8150-2

ebook isbn: 978-1-6667-8151-9

version number 09/14/23

Table of Contents

Title Page

List of Abbreviations

Preface

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Chapter 1: When You Pass through the Waters

Chapter 2: I Have Come into the Deep Waters

Chapter 3: The Seas Have Lifted up, Lord

Chapter 4: Its Waters Roar and Foam . . . Mountains Quake with Their Surging

Chapter 5: Teacher, Don’t You Care if We Drown?

Chapter 6: Jesus Went unto Them Walking on the Sea

Chapter 7: He Drew Me Out of Deep Waters

Chapter 8: No Longer Infants, Tossed by the Waves

Chapter 9: Here Is Where Your Proud Waves Halt

Chapter 10: Your Path Led through the Sea (Your Footprints were Not Seen)

Chapter 11: Rivers of Living Water

Chapter 12: And There Was No Longer Any Sea

Bibliography

Permissions

Chambers, Oswald. Quotation Out of the Wreck I Rise. Taken from My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers, edited by James Reimann, ©

1992

by Oswald Chambers Publications Assn., Ltd. Used by permission of Our Daily Bread Publishing, Grand Rapids, MI

49501

. All rights reserved. May

19

th. https://utmost.org/classic/out-of-the-wreck-i-rise-classic/.

———. Quotation from The Explanation for Our Difficulties. Taken from My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers, edited by James Reimann, ©

1992

by Oswald Chambers Publications Assn., Ltd. Used by permission of Our Daily Bread Publishing, Grand Rapids, MI

49501

. All rights reserved. May

22

nd. https://utmost.org/the-explanation-for-our-difficulties/.

———. Taken from Getting There by Oswald Chambers, ©

1935

by Oswald Chambers Publications Assn., Ltd. Used by permission of Our Daily Bread Publishing, Grand Rapids, MI

49501

. My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers, June

13

th. https://utmost.org/getting-there-

3

/.

———. Quotation from The Highest Good­ The Pilgrim’s Songbook,

537

L. Taken from My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers, edited by James Reimann, ©

1992

by Oswald Chambers Publications Assn., Ltd. Used by permission of Our Daily Bread Publishing, Grand Rapids, MI

49501

. All rights reserved. January

19

th. https://utmost.org/quotes/

2331

/.

———. Taken from House on a Rock by Oswald Chambers. ©

1935

by Oswald Chambers Publications Assn., Ltd. Used by permission of Our Daily Bread Publishing, Grand Rapids, MI

49501

. June

12

th. https://www.twolisteners.org/?p=

8983

.

———. Taken from The Place of Help by Oswald Chambers, ©

1935

by Oswald Chambers Publications Assn., Ltd. Used by permission of Our Daily Bread Publishing, Grand Rapids, MI

49501

. https://utmost.org/quotes/

2112

/.

———. Taken from Receiving Yourself in the Fires of Sorrow by Oswald Chambers, ©

1935

by Oswald Chambers Publications Assn., Ltd. Used by permission of Our Daily Bread Publishing, Grand Rapids, MI

49501

. June

25

th. https://utmost.org/receiving-yourself-in-the-fires-of-sorrow/.

———. Quotation Taking Possession of Our Soul. Taken from My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers, edited by James Reimann, © 1992

by Oswald Chambers Publications Assn., Ltd. Used by permission of Our Daily Bread Publishing, Grand Rapids, MI

49501

. All rights reserved. My Utmost for His Highest. May

20

th. https://utmost.org/taking-possession-of-our-own-soul/.

———. Quotation from What’s Next to Do. Taken from My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers, edited by James Reimann, © 1992

by Oswald Chambers Publications Assn., Ltd. Used by permission of Our Daily Bread Publishing, Grand Rapids, MI

49501

. All rights reserved. June

8

th., https://utmost.org/what%e

2

%

80

%

99

s-next-to-do/.

———. Quotation from Will You Lay Down your Life. Taken from My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers, edited by James Reimann, ©

1992

by Oswald Chambers Publications Assn., Ltd. Used by permission of Our Daily Bread Publishing, Grand Rapids, MI

49501

. All rights reserved. June

16

th. https://utmost.org/will-you-lay-down-your-life/.

For Dad, whom I look forward to seeing and hope to spend some time with at my cottage on the cliff overlooking the sea of glass as clear as crystal one glad kingdom come. —Rev 4:6 NIV

And I saw water coming out from under the threshold of the temple toward the east. . . . As the man went eastward with a measuring line in his hand, he measured off a thousand cubits and then led me through water that was ankle-deep. He measured off another thousand cubits and led me through water that was knee-deep. He measured off another thousand and led me through water that was up to the waist. He measured off another thousand, but now it was a river that I could not cross, because the water had risen and was deep enough to swim in—a river that no one could cross. He asked me, Son of man, do you see this?

—Ezek 47:1, 3–6 NIV

Then he led me back to the bank of the river. . . . so where the river flows everything will live. . . . Fruit trees of all kinds will grow on both banks of the river. Their leaves will not wither, nor will their fruit fail. Every month they will bear fruit because the water from the sanctuary flows to them. Their fruit will serve for food and their leaves for healing.

—Ezek 47:7, 10–12 NIV

List of Illustrations

1.When You Pass through the Waters. This illustration reflects the first portion of Isa 43:2. Deeper Christian faith, like deeper waters, begins a trickle, picks up volume and speed, ever widening into unfathomable streams.

2.When You Pass through the Rivers They Will Not Sweep Over You. This illustration reflects the second portion of Isa 43:2. Deep, fast-moving water can quickly grow from a small stream into a frightening, raging rapids that we can only navigate fearlessly in Christ.

3.The Quiet Lily Pond. This illustration reflects a calm, shallow pond. The danger of choosing to allow our spiritual lives to stay in the kiddie pool is spiritual stagnation.

4.Like Leaves on a Fast-Moving Stream. This illustrates the feeling of no control that is evident when fast-moving currents move those within them to places they do not choose to go, seemingly at the mercy of the river.

5.I Have Come into the Deep Waters. This illustration depicts Ps 69:1–3. When the water rises, engulfing one, that feeling of having no foothold and needing help can be terrifying.

6.The Tides. This illustration depicts how tides, like life’s trials, strike the shore of a beach, relentless in their pounding, yet also beautiful, majestic, and strength-building spiritually.

7.A Bulwark Never Failing. This illustration depicts a boat buffeted by the waves. It shows how the front part of the ship hits the waves head on, yet holds firm and fast in the roughest seas, like a faith, tempest-tried.

8.Though the Mountains Fall into the Heart of the Sea. This illustration depicts Ps 46:1–3. It elicits feelings of fear, and the utter destruction that a lack of a solid, safe haven in the storms can be without God as refuge and strength.

9.A Furious Squall Came Up. This illustration depicts the first verse of Mark 4:37–38, showing what it would look and feel like to be on the deck of a boat in danger of being swamped.

10.Teacher Don’t You Care if We Drown? This illustration depicts the final verse of Mark 4:37–38, showing what it would look and feel like to witness Jesus, your Savior, asleep on the deck of a boat you are on that is sinking!

11.Lord, if It Is You . . . Command Me Come. This illustration depicts Matt 14:25–33. Jesus bids Peter come onto the rough sea to him.

12.He Drew Me Out of Deep Waters. This illustration depicts 2 Sam 22:17. It shows what it would look and feel like to have Jesus pull you up and out of the deep water threatening to drown you.

13.No Longer Blown Here or There. This illustration depicts Eph 4:14. It metaphorically shows the lighthouse (God’s word) as the light from which to be guided to safe harbor, and spared from the tossing, turning, and churning of life’s deceitful seas.

14.Foundation on the Rock. This illustration depicts Matt 7:24–27. In contrast to illustration #8,