A Battle-Tested Faith

"The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still."

- Exodus 14:14, NIV

Exodus 14:14 is my favorite Bible verse. 

It captures perfectly how often we humans can get in the way. When we step aside, God can clean up any mess we might make.

Here's the context: the words in this verse are spoken by Moses to the people of Israel, just moments before they cross the Red Sea. As the Israelites are making their escape, the Egyptians pursue them. And the people are afraid. (Can't say I blame them.) So they cry out to the Lord and His servant Moses. Moses tells them not to be afraid and announces the promise that makes up v. 14.

As we know, the Israelites are delivered. God came through. 

God 1, Egyptians 0. 

The point here is that the Israelites needn't have feared Pharaoh or Egypt or their troubling circumstance. They should have been fearing God and trusting in Him all along. But we're humans, and humans are frail. We let our minds and our selves get in the way of God's glory.

Here are some of the other translations of the verse - they might give an even better picture of what I mean:

"The LORD will fight for you, and you have only to be silent.” (ESV)

"The LORD himself will fight for you. Just stay calm." (NLT)

"The LORD is fighting for you! So be still!" (GWT)

If that last one doesn't sound like a father scolding his child, I don't know what does. 

As Christians, we should know this. We should know that it's better to "let go and let God." And the thing is, we do know that. We just don't live like we know it.

God calls on us to have a huge faith...a faith that He has things under control...a faith that we demonstrate boldly to the world by our words and actions. (More on that in an upcoming blog entry.)

God calls on us to stop barging in and taking charge, but to let Him do it. (Trust me, He's better at it than we are, anyway.)

After all, I am not the warrior - God is. I am weak; He is strong. In letting God fight for me, in surrendering my life to His care, I can have certainty that the ultimate battle will end in victory.

Life is a series of battles that we fight - whether with others, ourselves or Satan - day in and day out. 

So live it with me. Let God fight for you. And let us watch our battles be won, one day at a time. 

Let's be battle-tested...in a way that only God can make us so.