“The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still.” Exodus 14:14 NIV
Moses is talking to the Israelites in a very emotional moment in this verse. They are at the edge of the Red Sea and the Egyptians are about to catch up to them and overtake them. At that moment, as the Israelites are scared that they are about to die, Moses reminds them that they serve God. He tells them that God will fight for them, but they have to trust, believe and remain calm.
I can imagine their fear was great, but God is greater. As the Egyptians came closer, Moses did as God instructed him to do. He lifted his staff over the sea and the waters parted. The Israelites crossed the sea on dry land, not muddy land, not wet land, but dry land. God delivered them, He fought for them and they just had to not try and solve the problem themselves. They needed to be still.
For Moses to tell the Israelites to be still as thousands of Egyptian chariots, horses and soldiers were racing towards them, took a great deal of courage. There were thousands of Israelites and they were panicking. When someone is panicking, it is very hard for them to think rationally or listen to logic. As Moses told them to stop and be still, they could have overtaken him, harmed him out of fear and frustration that they had walked all this way to then die, but they didn’t. Moses wasn’t sure exactly how God was going to save them but he knew God would and they just had to be still.
There are many times that the idea of being still is hard for me. I become anxious about a situation and feel like I need to fix it right at that moment, instead of letting go and letting God do what He is going to do. Being still is hard for a lot of people and in this verse, the Hebrew word that is used actually means to not only stop talking or complaining but also to stop moving. It literally means to be ‘still’.
When we stop relying on God for small things in our lives, the things we believe we can handle all by ourselves, we can get in trouble. We can become used to doing it all ourselves and forget that we serve God and our God can do anything. I am not saying that we shouldn’t do for ourselves what we can, but we shouldn’t cut God out of the equation of how we are going to do it either. It is easy to rely on God when we see no other way or the challenge is so big that God is the only way to solve it. However, He wants to be involved in each part of our lives, not just when we see no other way other than relying on Him.
In each situation, as we come to God, we need to practice the idea of being still. When we become still, not talking or wishing and physically not moving, we can hear God talking to us. We can’t hear Him when we have everything else going on because God doesn’t yell to talk to us, He whispers. He wants to know that He has our attention, that we want to hear from Him. He doesn’t want to have to fight to get our attention.
So, how hard is it for you to be still? Do you include God in all of your situations, big, small, important or trivial? He wants to have that relationship with us, He didn’t send Jesus so we can only have Him involved in our lives during the ‘big’ times. God created us, loves us and wants to be a part of our lives each and every day.
My question for you today is this…..
Will you let God fight for you?