Be Still

This morning, while praying for a friend, the Lord brought a verse to mind that I’ve often heard, quoted and found comfort in.  As I went to read the verse and was looking at the scriptures around it for context I came across a passage that is nearby that stopped me in my tracks.  It’s a scripture many of us have probably read multiple times.  Yet, for me it was as if I had never read these two sentences in this story because the focus is always on other parts.

It is from the story of Moses leading God’s people out of Egypt.  They’ve just witnessed all the plagues in Egypt, they’ve seen God’s hand upon them, and they are finally receiving their deliverance as they celebrate Passover for the first time.  Starting in Exodus 13:17-18 it reads,

^“When Pharaoh let the people go, God did not lead them on the road through the Philistine country, though that was shorter. For God said, “If they face war, they might change their minds and return to Egypt.” ¹⁸ So God led the people around by the desert road toward the Red Sea. The Israelites went up out of Egypt ready for battle.”

I don’t know about you, but I feel like God often chooses the long route when leading us to the promise, to the next thing. In my own life, I’ve found that journey tiring, difficult, and frustrating at times, even when I’m walking by faith. This verse spoke to me in volumes. God did not lead them on the road – “though that was shorter.” He knows all the routes that lead to where we are going, but he also knows what we will encounter on those routes and how we will respond. We often want the shorter route, but we aren’t yet equipped to handle it.

The love of God here is so very evident by the fact that he greatly desired their success.  He did not want them to give up and go back to their life of slavery. He knew the weariness from which they were coming and that they didn’t have it in them to face the battles that would be required on the short route.  So, he took them the long way.  It didn’t require war, but it did require faith. 

The verse that first led me here was Exodus 14:14, and it says, “The LORD will fight for you; you need only to be still.” There was a shorter, faster route to their deliverance, but it required them to fight both in faith and physically.  He would have given them the victory, but it would have required physical and mental strength that he knew they didn’t have.  Instead, he took them the long route which only required their full trust and faith that he would deliver them.  The Lord would do the fighting – they just had to trust him. And yet, despite this, they still cry out, “It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the desert!” Because they didn’t know the end game. They could not see that God was making it easier on them. They couldn’t yet see the answer, they only saw the obstacle.  Yet God saw the opportunity for his glory and the increase in their faith. 

God was not only going to deliver them from the hands of their enemy, he was also going to destroy their enemy in the process – and the result was that “…the people feared the LORD and put their trust in him and in Moses his servant.” (Exodus 14:31).  He didn’t do it early – he completed it in the last watch of the night.  The same time he was resurrected from the dead after his death and burial.  His deliverance is never early, and it is never late; it reveals his power.

If we only knew all the things that the Lord has saved us from and delivered us into, how different our perspective would be.  How often I find myself complaining about the route and speed in which I am getting to where God wants me to go not realizing the compassion he is having on me in keeping me from the faster and more difficult way.  Not realizing that if I went the faster route I may have turned back, it may have been more than I could handle, and he just wanted me to rest in him and learn to fully trust him in the process.

If the Israelites had gone the shorter route and fought and won the battles, maybe God would have gotten credit, but often when we face things that we could possibly do in our own strength (at least in our minds) then we rarely remember to be overwhelmingly amazed and thankful at God’s deliverance.  We walk away with a greater sense of self or whatever else there is to put our faith in for the circumstances.

And that is the thing I am praying for that brought me to this verse.  For a friend who faces something that cannot be cured by human strength or medicine.  When the diagnosis is not so bad, we often breathe a sigh of relief, because somehow we think it will be easier for God to heal.  But it is in the things that cannot be done by the hands of man where God says, “take your hands off the wheel and trust that I can and will do this.”  It doesn’t mean we sit back and stop listening and obeying.  Right after Moses says, “The LORD will fight for you…” (Exodus 14:14), “the LORD said to Moses, ‘Why are you crying out to me? Tell the Israelites to move on. Raise your staff and stretch out your hand over the sea to divide the water so that the Israelites can go through the sea on dry ground.” (Exodus 14:15-16) But Moses’ power did not come from him.  His ability to part the waters, the knowledge of what to do was not from him, it was all from God. 

He uses us, if we are willing vessels.  He leads us into greater things, and he does it in ways that help get us to the finish line, but he doesn’t want us to get there without realizing who got us there.  Later down the road, they did have to face the giants for their promise, but not until they fully knew and trusted the One who would get them through. 

When a prayer request comes to me that seems very difficult in the natural world, I believe that is where God can and will do his best and greatest work if we will let him — if we will fully trust in the God who is bigger than every problem and whose healing capability is not dictated by a diagnosis. The same one who is able to heal all things also knows the best path to lead us on –sometimes short, sometimes long, but always into his best and alongside him if we will “be still.”