Forty Days of Praise -- Fighter
The Lord will fight for you while you keep silent.
Exodus 14:14
The Heartbeat of God, p. 122
Happy Friday, Soul Sisters. We are ending another week that has been weird (at best) and disturbing (for most). This week, I’ve experienced more of a heaviness of heart. It seems we’ve all settled into this new and temporary “normal.” But, this isn’t the normal that we want.
I don’t know about you, but I believe the hardest part of this whole pandemic is that I’m realizing that I don’t have any control!
I can’t control the length of isolation and quarantine.
I can’t control when the world opens back up so that businesses can operate and thrive.
I can’t control how the people I live with experience this new life that we live.
I can't control that fact that there are NO paper towels at any store when I am OUT! :(
At times, I’ve not even been able to control my own emotion over the things we’ve been experiencing together throughout the world.
Here’s the thing, though, any control I thought I had prior to this viral threat was imagined. I’ve never had any real control over my life and my communities. God is fully in control, and He will fight for us when we are attacked by something that we don’t understand. Surrendering to that care during desperate times will take courage, though.
I’m sharing a sermon today. This was the Easter message at Life Church. I think you’ll enjoy it, and I believe that you’ll be encouraged to trade the imagined control for God’s very real control. When anxiety attacks or things spin wildly, we can choose to still our hearts, minds, and voices. We can watch the Lord fight on our behalf.
Oh, by the way…. This verse has always confused me, because the very next verse seems to send a different message. “Then the LORD said to Moses, ‘Why are you crying out to Me? Tell the sons of Israel to go forward.’” Does it bother anyone else that Moses tells Israel to be still and then asks them why they’re not moving?
It’s a question mark moment in scripture for me, because the message seems confusing. It doesn’t seem that it was confusing to Moses then, and it doesn’t have to be confusing for us now. Ladies, our good God is fighting for us. Our job is to stick close to Him. He will cover us and act on our behalf when the fight is too big. He will ask us to get up and move with Him when we're able. Either way, we get to hand over control to the God who controls.
For further reading: Joshua 6:15-20; 2 Chronicles 20:22; 1 Samuel 17: 46-52; Job 38: 22-23; Psalm 35:1; 1 John 4:4; Ephesians 6:16
God, You are the Fighter. I am called to be the follower. We are learning more and more that following You in submission and surrender isn’t necessarily easy. Our humanity makes us want to take on the fight even when we aren’t able warriors. Make us smarter than we are so that we can see Your purposes shining through. Help us to trust that You are doing more than we can ever imagine so that we will hand over our will in exchange for Your victory. We still don’t know what you’re doing through this pandemic, but I believe we are all seeing Your hand at work. We don’t want to miss out on any of the good things that You’re doing. Thank you for the reminder of the cross last Friday. Cause us to remember the fight You paid for our freedom as assurance that You are the only Fighter we will ever need.
