“The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still.” Exodus 14:14
What a comforting verse! There have been many times that I have relied on this verse to keep me encouraged and strengthened when facing difficult times. The first time was when I was being falsely accused. I wanted to loudly proclaim my innocence and prove the person was lying. I wanted everyone to see and acknowledge that I was the “good guy” in the situation. That’s when God told me to just be still. As much as I wanted to orchestrate how the situation was going to play out, it was a relief to be able to just let go and let God. Let Him handle everything. Trust Him that He’ll do it His way, in His time, with the best outcome for everyone involved.
If God is fighting our battles, we don’t have to do anything, right? Well, not exactly. When we look at the verse in context, we see that the Israelite people had just left their slavery in Egypt and were being pursued by the Egyptian army. We now know the end of this story, but let’s put ourselves in their shoes. We’re told that the Israelites were armed for battle. They may have had the fighting implements, but not one of them was trained to fight. They had been slaves. There wasn’t a trained military man among them. In front of them was a Sea and behind them was one of, if not the greatest armies of the time. This highly trained army had horses and chariots while the Israelites were on foot. This wasn’t exactly a fair match!
God did two things for them. First, the angel that had been leading them moved from in front to behind, between them and the Egyptian army. Then God parted the Red Sea. But did the people just sit there, completely still? Not at all. They obeyed God and they moved. They walked between walls of water! Can you imagine?! It must have been so frightening, realizing that those walls could crash in on them at any time. But still, they obeyed. Just to show how precarious those walls were, they did crash. But they crashed on the Egyptian army, drowning them all.
What would have happened if the Israelites had been completely still and refused to cross over? Thankfully, we’ll never know but we can imagine some possible scenarios. So what does this verse mean? God was showing them – and us – that the battle is His. We need to obey Him. We need to do what He has told us to do. But the hard stuff will be taken care of by Him. We need to be still enough on the inside to trust Him in the face of impossibilities. What about you? How is God telling you to move? What army are you facing? What difficulties looms so large you’re afraid they will crash down and drown you? Just remember that God is fighting the battle. But He’s asking you to trust Him enough to move as He directs. Then you’ll see the miracles and glory of God working on your behalf!