Exodus 14:13-14 “Moses answered the people, “Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the Lord will bring you today. The Egyptians you see today you will never see again. The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still.” This episode is about God's call to us to be still with Him and to just sit in the silence. Music:"Adding the Sun" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
You Need Only Be Still
Exodus 14:13-14 “Moses answered the people, “Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the Lord will bring you today. The Egyptians you see today you will never see again. The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still.”
This is something that the Lord has been telling me a lot lately. “You need only to be still” When I read this verse I knew it was a message that wan’t just for me, it was for all of us. The beginning of the verse says something that God says a lot in the Bible. “Do not be afraid.” God is constantly telling us this in the Bible. He tells us over and over again to not be afraid, to not worry. Why is it so hard to listen to Him? Why do we tend to worry about everything? Why is it so hard to trust and to not be afraid? I think that it is so hard to trust because we are used to people letting us down.
We live in a broken world and people say they will do things all the time and then they don’t. We all make promises and then struggle to keep them. People say one thing and mean another. As much as we want to be perfect, we are far from it. We are afraid to trust God because we forget that He is not like the other people in our lives. We forget that He doesn’t let us down and that He always keeps His promises. God does not tell us one thing and then do another. When you read the Bible you can see exactly who God is. He tells us who He is, what He wants and all the things He is willing to do for us. So, why can’t we trust it? Are we working on trusting more? Are we trying to trust that He will do the things He says He will? Are we trying to not be afraid, knowing He will save us?
The next part of the verse says, “Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the Lord will bring you today.” I know a lot of people that are waiting for this deliverance today. Moses said this to the Israelites when they were standing on the banks of the Red Sea. They were scared because they looked behind them and they could see the Egyptian army coming right for them. Then they looked in front of them and they saw the red seas. I would be scared too! They were confused because Moses told them that God was leading them to a promised land. They trusted this was true and they left their homes. Now it looked like they were facing certain death. How could this be happening? Then Moses said stand firm and you will see the deliverance the Lord will bring you today.
How do you stand firm when you are scared? How do you stand firm when it looks like you are facing certain death? I don’t blame the Israelites for being scared, I think I would have been scared too. And yet, the Israelites had seen God do the impossible just before they left Egypt. The Lord had brought plagues upon Egypt, but spared them. They saw how Moses held up his hands and the plagues came and then he commanded them to stop and they did. God killed all the first born sons in Egypt, but allowed them to mark their doors so that their first borns would be saved. They had seen first hand the power of God and yet, they were still scared when they reached the Red Sea and couldn’t see a way out. We might be tempted to judge them. I mean, they saw first hand God’s power, how come they didn’t trust He would save them? They didn’t trust because they didn’t see the way. We are people who believe and trust what we see and are skeptical if we can’t see it with our own eyes. Sometimes even when we do see it with our own eyes, we don’t trust it. We think it must be a trick, there must be some other explanation for it.
In case you don’t know this story, God parted the Red Sea and the Israelites walked right through it on dry ground. Then when the Egyptian army tried to do the same the water flowed again and they all died. You would think after seeing this the Israelites would never again doubt the Lord. And yet they do, time and time again. I guess it is our human nature. However, I think it is something that we should fight against. I don’t think we should just accept it as a fact and not try to do anything about it. Moses was able to trust all God said. Well, there was one time when he didn’t and because of it wasn’t allowed to lead the people into the promised land. However, for the most part he learned to trust in God. If he can learn to trust in God then I believe we can too, but how? How can we learn to trust in the Lord more?
I think the answer can be found in the last part of this verse. “The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still.” I think if we want to trust in the Lord more we need to be still and sit with Him. There were two words of prophecy from my prayer group that seem to fit perfectly with this episode and seem to confirm this call for us to just be still. In the first one the Lord said, “My children in the days ahead I ask that you simply be, be with me in silence. Just be and let that silence fill you, around you because I am in that silence.” Sometimes we can feel like we always need to be doing something. We feel as though we need to be praying, or saying a rosary, or talking to God. We don’t understand that He loves it when we just sit with Him, not doing anything, just sitting. The Lord our God is in the silence. When we are sitting with Him in silence He is all around us.
In the second word, that was given to my prayer group, the Lord said, “Be still my children. Be still and breathe in my Holy Spirit. The spirit of life, of goodness, of truth, of wisdom, of love and compassion. Be still and breathe in the very breath of God. I know that my gift to you, in my great mercy is life, life in me, with me, through me, because of me.” “Breathe in the very breath of God.” Wow, imagine if we thought of that every time we took a breath? How much closer would we grow to God if we remembered that every time we were taking in a breath we were breathing in the very breath of God? Again, in this word the Lord is telling us to be still. I know He is not just talking to me. We live in such a busy world. If you think about it honestly, when was the last time you just sat in silence with the Lord? I know for me this is so difficult. We are used to a noisy and busy world.
When I hear the Lord telling me to just be still with Him I get confused. I want to obey the Lord and yet I wonder, be still and do what? He tells me to just be still and do nothing. Do nothing? How do I do nothing? It is definitely something that I have been working on and yet still struggle with a lot. If we want to trust the Lord more then we need to do as He asks us to do. We need to sit with Him in silence and to let that silence fill us up. The Lord tells us to breathe in His Holy Spirit. The spirit of truth, wisdom, love and compassion. Who doesn’t need more of all of that? The Lord will give us all we need, and He all He is asking from us is that we sit still with Him and let Him fill us up. Why is this so hard? Can you commit to spending even just 5 minutes sitting in silence with the Lord today? Will you sit in silence and breathe in the Holy Spirit, the very breath of God?
Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening to this podcast today. Lord, help us to stand firm and to not be afraid. Help us to trust that you will deliver us from our situation, whatever that situation may be. Lord, help us to sit still in the silence. Calm our minds and help us to see that you are calling us to just be with you. That we don’t have to do anything, you just want our time. You offer us so much Lord, help us to accept all that you offer. You have said that your gift to us is life you, with you, through you and because of you. We want that gift Lord. We want to live a life in you and with you. Please help us Lord. We love you, you are wonderful and I know we don’t tell you that enough. We are so grateful for all that you do. We ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus’ holy name, Amen.
Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus. I look forward to spending time with you tomorrow. Have a blessed day!