The Lord Will Fight For You.

Nov 18

A couple nights ago a friend posted Exodus 14:14 “ The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still.” I shared it on my Facebook profile and went to bed trying to remember when God had said that and to whom. When I woke up the next morning, I looked it up.

The Israelites had just left Egypt and were in the wilderness heading towards the Red Sea. At the beginning of chapter 14 God tells Moses what is going to happen. Pharaoh’s heart is going to turn hard again, and God is the one who turns it, Pharaoh is going to see the Israelites are wandering in the wilderness and choose to pursue them to bring them back to be slaves. God tells Moses, I am in control of this, I am going to show my glory.

Sure enough, everything happens as God says it will. The way the beginning of chapter 14 is written we know God told Moses to relay the message of what was going to happen to the people, and I feel confident Moses did because in verse 4 it says they (collective) did what God had said.

In typical human being fashion, as soon as the Israelites saw Pharaoh’s large army chasing after them and they knew they were trapped between the army and the sea, they panicked. They went to Moses and essentially said, why did you free us, were there no graves in Egypt? They even went so far as to say it would be better to go back to slavery (although they down play it and say “serve” instead of “slave”). A little dramatic? Yes. I can I relate to the drama because I too have been guilty of it in my own life.

Moses tells the Israelites a few things, first he tells them to not be afraid, then to stand firm and finally he tells them the Lord will fight for them, they only need to be still. After that God says to Moses, why are you crying out to me? I can picture God saying - I already told you the plan, I am going to be glorified! He then says, tell the Israelites to move forward while you lift up your staff and stretch it out over the sea.

If you grew up in the church like I did, you now know this part of the story. God parts the Red Sea and a whole nation of people walk through on dry ground. It’s a miracle, God is glorified. He proves he is in control, he can be trusted and He is just. The army of their enemy and oppressor was drowned in the sea as they followed in their pride, greed and entitlement. Their oppressors will no longer be able to come after them, they are truly free and the fame of God began to spread to the other nations.

Some might look at this story and see a cruel God for allowing the Egyptians to drown. I see a just God and a cruel people who over and over again chose away from God and chose to hurt, abuse and oppress others. Pharaoh and his armies had choices, they chose to follow the Israelites into the Red Sea. God may have hardened Pharaoh’s heart to chase after the Israelites but he didn’t make Pharaoh an oppressor, he didn’t make him prideful and run into the divided waters. And, we don’t know, maybe Pharaoh realized the greatness of God in his final moments.

As someone who has been called to be a voice for the oppressed in our modern day, I have to admit I take comfort in a just God who is mightier than the oppressors and works to bring freedom and restoration to the oppressed. I take great comfort in a God who fights for me when the enemy is looming large on one side and a sea of impossibilities hedges me in from the other. When I am tempted to panic because I feel trapped in my circumstances I need the reminder from God like He gave to the Israelites through Moses. This is for His glory, I followed him here, I do not have to be afraid, I can stand strong because He is faithful, He will and is fighting for me, I simply have to be still, and keep moving forward.

It’s funny to me how these directives of stand strong, be still, and move forward can all live together. It is reflective, I think, of the both/and life I am learning more and more I am meant to live. To be still and trust God is fighting for me doesn’t mean I am physically dormant. This means I have a stillness in my soul, I cease striving and worrying, and I stand strong in obedience, choose trust over fear and move forward in the plan he already set in motion for me.

This is the lesson of the parting of the Red Sea for me today. God has led us in a plan, maybe he has led you in one too, and it seems not to be going how we imagined it would. The enemy is coming strong, and the path is blocked by a mound of water. But God said his plan would come to pass, his glory would be shown. So we trust and in trusting a stillness is established in our very souls. We can stand strong on his promises even in the seeming impossibility because - God. We move forward in what we had already committed to do, in obedience.

Today is Give to the Max day here in Minnesota. Every nonprofit I know and about a million I don’t are pushing a fundraising goal. Stories Foundation isn’t any different, we have a fundraising event tonight and have a goal to raise $60,000 through this event. I have to be honest with you, the situation with securing 1.5 million to fund Storyteller Cafe has me resonating with the Israelites as they stood beside the Red Sea. Human trafficking and a culture where it is incubated for massive growth is coming from behind and a funding system stacked against us is like a Red Sea in front of me. But I have to tell you, my soul is still. I am not striving. I have peace. Tonight, I am going to get up at our event and stand strong in the vision because it isn’t mine, it’s God’s. We are going to keep moving forward because freedom is the heart of God and He is working his plan out to bring about his justice and restoration. The door isn’t closed, and I have a God who parts seas so his people can walk on dry ground towards freedom.

I don’t know where you are at today, what God is calling you to follow him in or where you find yourself as you have been following. If there is anything I do know, more confidently today than ever before, it is God is faithful. He is working. He can be trusted. Surrender is sweet because God is sweet, and strong.

Yesterday at youth group I sat in my 9th grade small group and thought about how God is the only one who I can trust fully. I have practiced trusting him over and over and where as all the other things I have put my hope and trust in (jobs, people, meetings, banks, individual funders, churches) have failed me again and again - God has never left me. He has continually unfolded his plan in my life and I see more of what he is doing now than I ever have before.

Trusting God doesn’t have to be work, letting go of our own control, that can be hard. Surrendering, that is counter our nature. But every day I sit in my favorite chair by the window and I don’t even think for a second it won’t hold me. The practice of trusting God over and over gives me a similar, albeit even better, result. The more I rest in him, the more I see He is working and in control; the more I know He is fighting for me. I feel myself getting to a place where I can sit in him like I sit in this chair. With unquestioning trust.

Unquestioning trust doesn’t mean I know the future, quite the opposite actually. It means I trust the one who does know the future, and for right now, that is enough.

Where do you need to trust God today? Where do you need to hear the reminders to not be afraid, stand strong, be still and move forward because the God who parts the Seas is fighting for you? My prayer for you today is you choose to surrender, I can tell you as I stand at the banks of my own Red Sea, even in this place, there is nothing sweeter.