“The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still.” ~ Exodus 14:14 ~ In Exodus 14, the Israelites, aka God’s chosen people, are fleeing into the desert from Egypt where they’ve been enslaved for generations. When they see Pharaoh and his army chasing after them, they cry out to God and ask their leader, Moses, “Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you brought us to the desert to die? It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the desert!”
God was in the process of delivering them from centuries of oppression and mistreatment, and yet they wished they’d stayed in Egypt? When I read that, I thought how ridiculous!! You would think after surviving the plagues that the Israelites would have had total faith that God was fighting for them. They even had a pillar of cloud leading them by day and a pillar of fire to travel by night!
Seriously! A pillar of cloud. Can you imagine what that would have looked like? I imagine it was like a fog so dense you couldn’t see through it to the other side. The kind of fog that if you flew through it, it might scare you. Have you flown through fog like that? I have.
I was flying home from a vacation with a friend in the middle of a crazy weather day. The fog was so thick that you couldn’t see the ground until after we landed! Now, I had flown several times before and knew the pilot was flying by radar, not by sight. I wasn’t scared because I knew the pilot was in control even though I couldn’t see where we were going. My friend however, hadn’t flown more than a handful of times. She was uneasy and felt helpless because she couldn’t do anything to ensure we landed safely. She just had to have faith that the pilot had the skills to get us home safe and sound.
This was the first time my friend had ever experienced something like this, so her reaction makes sense. But I believe now that she’s been through it, it’ll be easier to trust the next time. Similarly, when you’ve seen God move in your life, you have more confidence He’ll do it again. Several times throughout the rest of the Bible, the Israelites’ escape from Egypt is brought up as a reason to have faith and trust in God – almost as if they said to one another, "Remember when God delivered us out of Pharaoh’s hand? He saved us then, He’ll do it again."
Think of a time when you were forced to depend on God’s strength, not your own, to get you through something incredibly difficult. Cling to that the next time you’re faced with a trial, and have faith He’ll do it again. If you have trouble thinking of a time when God brought you through a storm, borrow a story from your brothers and sisters in Christ – use the Israelite’s escape from Egypt as your reason to believe. Our God is the same today as He was then, and He fights for you just as much as He fought for them. You can rest in His promise that He is always in control. You need only to be still.
Father God, help me to be still and trust in you. When everything seems to be going wrong and I feel the need to try to take control, steady me. Fill me with your peace, give me hope, and help me to surrender it all to you. I thank you that you’ll never leave me to fight alone. Thank you for always delivering on your promises. You are my calm in the storm, and I know you’ll never fail me. Thank you, Jesus! Amen.
In His love,
Rachel Feuerborn
Changed Women's Ministry