The LORD will fight for you while you remain silent. -Exodus 14:14 (NASB)

They were out of options. Death was imminent.

When the Israelites were on the run from Pharaoh and his army, they were pinned down with the Red Sea at their backs, nowhere to run. They were unarmed and worn down physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

Moses cried out to God, who asked Moses why he cried out to Him. God told the Israelites to move toward the Red Sea, and He would use Moses and his staff to part the sea so His people could cross on dry land.

And we all know how God saved His seemingly doomed people. All they had to do was be still in faith, rather than panic because they saw no earthly options.

In 2020, we face a viral pandemic, with a microscopic killer we cannot see. It’s like being in a horror movie, wandering through a fog at night, not knowing when something will slice through the fog and kill us.

It’s like we’re out of options. Death seems imminent.

It’s times like these where a perspective change is crucial, because these times underline our utter helplessness. Our impressive technological achievements have actually aided in accelerating the spread of this eerie killer worldwide. So now what?

Now we do as the Israelites did: we stop panicking and running. We can quiet down, get out of His way, and entrust Him with the outcome. Trust that He will use the people He needs in His plan to get us to a better place.

In our silence, we may once again hear the Spirit (instead of social media) to help us discern how to conduct ourselves in terms of safety and graciously conducting ourselves with others who may have different perspectives.

Let us be still and know that He is God, and remember that He is in control (Psalm 46:10). The fight is His.

Then David spoke to the men who were standing by him, saying, “What will be done for the man who kills this Philistine and takes away the reproach from Israel? For who is this uncircumcised Philistine, that he should taunt the armies of the living God?” -1 Samuel 17:26 (NASB)

In this day and age, especially in the United States, being a cyclist, motorcyclist, or driving a small car means you’re dwarfed by just about everything around you. SUVs, trucks, and even sedans are like moving walls all around you. You can’t see past them or over them. And sometimes they don’t see you, so you have to be vigilant for your own sake.

What’s interesting about being the vulnerable one is that you have to be assertive and sure of your movements. If you only see with your eyes and think that it’s just too intimidating to drive among such large vehicles, you can paralyze yourself, and miss the possibilities God has waiting on the other side.

When the Israelites made it to the Promised Land and heard reports of unbeatable giants, their faith was quickly shaken. They only trusted in their senses, and not God’s promise of the land to them. But two spies, Joshua and Caleb, saw those same giants through God’s eyes. They knew the giants were of no concern. As a result, Joshua and Caleb were the only two members of their generation allowed to enter the Promised Land 40 years later…and Joshua was handed the mantle to lead his people.

When young David faced and defeated the Philistine giant Goliath, while every single other Israelite soldier cowered, David saw the giant through God’s eyes. He knew Goliath was nothing when facing an opponent with God on his side. David went on to succeed King Saul as the second king of Israel–and the nation’s greatest, with a heart after God’s own heart.

By all earthly logic, giant situations and problems can be intimidating or even seem insurmountable. But with God, all things are possible. Mountains, giants, and the like are all leveled in when God is on the playing field.

The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it. -John 1:5 (NASB)

The night is almost gone, and the day is near. Therefore let us lay aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light. -Romans 13:12 (NASB)

When you’ve been traveling in darkness and doubt so thick that you could cut it with a knife, you might wonder if it will ever end. But one thing that we learn as believers is that we are not helpless victims of the darkness. We were reborn to fight it.

In the Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, we learn of a mystical sword the hero wields that glows as a warning in the presence of evil enemies. In our real lives here on earth, we wield the Sword of the Spirit–God’s Word–that similarly pierces darkness and makes it hide.

The interesting thing about light is how powerfully it pierces the darkness. A single match or candle can turn a room of fear and mystery into sights you can identify and face. Light makes things that don’t like light scurry and hide.

The darker the night, the brighter light shines. As children of the light, we carry God’s light into the deepest, darkest, dankest corners of the earth. Sometimes, those corners are in our own homes and lives. And God does not give us timidity, but boldness where we didn’t have it.

Don’t be afraid of the dark. You carry God’s light. Watch how darkness scatters when you remember to wield the light of His truth!

The LORD will fight for you; you need only to be still. -Exodus 14:14 (NIV)

Children have a way of asking you questions that force you to boil things down to their essence, and give a digestible answer. And when you give an boiled down answer to a child, you really have to think about how to accurately explain it. My son gave me just such a question the other day.

He was listening to Bobby McFerrin’s “Don’t Worry Be Happy” (remember that from the ’80s?) and asked me, “Why do people worry?”

The old, unbelieving me would’ve given some very unhelpful and cynical answers, like :

• “Grown-ups have real problems you don’t know about yet.”
• “I don’t know.” (An answer which will only merit another “why?” anyway!)

But the new me had the new, better answer the old me would’ve never known: People worry because they want to control things they can’t control. If they remember that God is in control, then they wouldn’t worry.

When the Israelites had their backs against the wall at the Red Sea, and Pharaoh’s armies closing in on them, that would seem like a pretty reasonable time to be worried. But they’d already had repeated assurances that God would deliver them…and how He did, despite their lack of faith!

We don’t want unpleasantness or suffering in our lives, so if only we could control people and situations, then we think our lives would be better. But as believers, we can trust that God can and does put seemingly impassable–and impossible–barriers before us, so we have to rely on Him to overcome them. (We also need His help to discern when we suffer needlessly, or if we’re meant to endure godly suffering for His greater plans involving us which are still unfolding.)

I know that God is using me to teach my son and train him up, and my son to get back to basics about how God wants us to live. And the bottom line here is that we aren’t to worry, and we can be happiness rooted in His joy, because we never were in control, but He is–and there’s no one else better to be at the wheel.

Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life? -Matthew 6:27 (NIV)

Of the Goliaths we face in life, the Goliath of worry has a special power: he saps your vitality, your emotional strength, and even weakens your spirit. He’s like Kryptonite to Superman.

Oh, there are so many things to worry about. Money. The future. Employment. Our loved ones. Our health.

Worry fuels Goliath. Worry amuses and excites the enemy, who wants you to doubt your faith and let your eyes drink in all the fear factors.

It’s times like these that allow us to stop living by sight and let God take over, which is what we’re called to do in all times. It’s times like these that teach us to live and relish the blessings of the moment, with the assurance that God is already ahead of us in our future, preparing better things:

Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. -Matthew 6:34 (NIV)

Lord, thank you for providing all we could ever need. Please remind us through your Word and your promises that faith in your provision is faith in your unfailing love! Forgive us when we falter in our faith. Please bless our houses and hear our prayers, to crush and suffocate the Goliath of worry, and to equip us and strengthen us with your might, to your glory. In your Son’s holy and powerful name we pray, amen!

Is not my word like fire, declares the LORD, and like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces? -Jeremiah 23:29 (NIV)

Remember Jiffy Pop? It’s a packaged pan of unpopped popcorn under an aluminum foil top. When you slowly move this pan over the heat of a stove, you start to hear popping noises inside, and the once flat foil top grows upward and outward like a chef’s hat, eventually bursting from all the popcorn inside.

Our lives can be a lot like that pan. If we play it safe and avoid the discomfort of stepping out in faith to do what is God-honoring, we’re left with a cold pan and lots of unpopped kernels…lots of untapped potential and growth.

But when we apply the heat of God’s Word and truth to our lives, by walking in faith and trusting God as the safety net for our lives, our lives can be bursting with growth. Sometimes God will apply the heat for us, and though times may seem downright tough, we can trust that we will grow as a result.

Jesus didn’t play it safe. He lived boldly, right in the heat and the thick of the action. He is our model for living, is He not?

Unpopped popcorn kernels are seeds. And they need extreme heat–not mild warmth–to pop open. And so it is with our walk in faith. The searing heat and light of God’s Word will burst open and demolish the enemy’s strongholds of fear, trepidation, false comfort, and sloth.

If you find areas of your life cold, tepid, tasteless, or in ruts, God can help. Apply His heat to your life so it’s bursting and energetic, no matter what the circumstances, and know that you honor the Lord in doing so, and He will carry you through the heat!

You have decided the length of our lives. You know how many months we will live, and we are not given a minute longer. -Job 14:5 (NLT)

Twenty years ago, around Easter of 1995, I was driving down the freeway one night on the way home, about 65 mph (104.6 kph). The freeway was empty, except for an SUV parked on the shoulder…and a man standing outside of it in the shadows.

As I approached the SUV, I noticed the man made a throwing motion. Next thing I knew, something had crashed through my windshield and would smash me in the face. In that instant, I turned my head slightly to the right, and the object smashed my left jaw. Glass and blood were everywhere…in my mouth, eyelashes, and all over the interior of the car.

I rolled down the car window and blasted the radio to keep myself from blacking out, and managed to eventually drive home and recover. The object was a large chunk of concrete, which probably would’ve killed me if I hadn’t turned my head.

A few months later in the same year, I was sideswiped when I was about to get out of my car, which had overheated on the freeway. My car was totaled, and to this day, my knee has never been the same.

Twenty years later, in December 2015, I was visiting family in the hospital, but security stopped me and other visitors from leaving the lobby to get to our cars. It turns out that someone was shooting people in the back of the hospital, so no one could come in or out. A few minutes later, security did let a few of us go to our cars, so I headed home.

Some would say that I am really lucky, or cheated death, or avoided death, but as believers, we know we have nothing to do with determining our time of death. And we also know that there is no such thing as luck.

God knows exactly when it’s our time to go. We don’t ever need to worry about how and when we will leave this earth, but instead take comfort in knowing that He does, and that if we believe in His Son and His saving work for us on the cross, that we will pass on from this world into the eternal ecstasy of His presence.

The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still. -Exodus‬ ‭14:14‬ ‭(NIV‬‬)

Be still and know that I am God. -Psalm 46:10 (NIV)

For we walk by faith, not by sight. -2 Corinthians 5:7 (ESV)

A fellow agent shared this verse with another agent, who’s going through a really tough trial. And this verse is one of my favorites, because we often can forget to be still and let God do His thing. We struggle so much with the evidence our eyes and ears and brains see that we’ll let it overrun our nerves and steal the very peace God is offering us all along.

When we rewind to the second book of the bible, we see the Israelites on the run from Pharaoh’s armies. The Israelites have faced relentless oppression in Egypt for centuries, and now they were running through the desert to a dead end: the Red Sea. The Egyptian armies were closing in on them, and there was no reason to believe there was any way out of the situation…that there was no reason to have hope.

Drown in the sea or be brutally slaughtered by armed forces? The Israelites complained to Moses: Why didn’t you just leave us in servitude in Egypt, rather than to die out here in the desert? We had it better under the Egyptians!

But God would deliver them, and give them a logically impossible option that, despite their focus on self and away from Him, would deliver them and glorify Him. God had Moses assure the Israelites to just trust in Him and let Him fight for them. But their eyes and ears dominated their hearts with fear.

God had Moses part the Red Sea, and the Israelites ran across bone dry sand to the other side. The Egyptian armies gave chase, and just as they were about to catch the Israelites, God dropped the sea waters back down on the armies, drowning every single one of them.

When we’re cornered by a situation, may we also look to God to fight for us when we see no reason to hope. Our hope is in Him alone, and in Him always, for He loves His children and will fight for us…we only need to be still.

What are you, mighty mountain? Before Zerubbabel you will become level ground. Then he will bring out the capstone to shouts of ‘God bless it! God bless it!’ -Zechariah 4:7 (NIV)

Sometimes, the road God wants you to walk seems impassable. You’re deep in a valley, mountains all around. And where God wants you to forge ahead is blocked by a massive mountain.

Sometimes, you just have to take the mountain. Take it for God’s glory.

In our lives, those mountains may be people, situations, or even blockers in ourselves that we must overcome. And to overcome them, we must face them head on.

That mountain is truly too big for you to handle alone. You can’t do it alone. You have to count on God to safely get you up those treacherous climbs…those impossibly steep cliff faces…those harrowing gaps where you have to make true leaps of faith to beat the mountain.

Take heart that God’s road for your life continues past that mountain, because He needs you to take the mountain for your growth. The strength in faith and fortitude of character are built on the grueling ascent. The fact that His intended road for you continues past the mountain is your assurance that He is on the other side waiting for you, knowing you will make it.

And, just as surely as He created that mountain before you–for you–He created you. And after you’ve taken the mountain and descended to the other side of it, it will be as if He had removed it altogether and made a plain out of it! Nothing is too hard for the Lord.

Just take the mountain. God is with you to conquer it, and is already there on the other side!

Those who trust in themselves are fools, but those who walk in wisdom are kept safe. -Proverbs 28:26 (NIV)

At the time of this writing, over two years into my new walk with Christ, I still often fall into the trap of reacting to circumstances reflexively in the flesh. My mind still quickly processes all the data it can to figure out a solution to make things better, and sometimes I’m hasty and act to fix things. Or maybe it’s hanging onto something too tightly. And more often than not, things don’t go well as a result.

When I slow down and let the Holy Spirit speak to my heart, I can clearly hear that I need to wait for God’s direction, and to let go of what I’m really trying to do: control the situation. In truth, control is an illusion the world tells us we exert, but God is the One in control!

Do you fall into the same trap in your walk? I can imagine that it’s one of those lifelong battles of the flesh that we get better at with age…assuming we let the Lord work in us, rather than obstinately pushing back with pride, trying to be an immovable object.

No matter what it is…whether it’s a material thing, a situation, or even a gift God has given you…don’t cling too tightly. We can trust in, and know that, God’s plans for us are so good, as His Word promises. So no matter what comes and goes in our lives, we can be assured that His plans for us are good, to prosper us and not to harm us.

Dr. Charles Stanley, of In Touch Ministries, says in his Life Principle 19: Anything you hold too tightly, you will lose.

If anything, I’ve learned that God wants us to be nimble and fluid when it comes to things of this world. What we hold fast to, however, is the unshakable kingdom for which we’re headed. There is no greater security or assurance!