Courtney Ellis

I’m a doer.

I do things.

Anybody else?

Tell me that you need something done by Thursday, or the sink is stopped up, or you need 500 words on pretty much anything, and I will get on it.

What I don’t want to do is be still. Ever.

Being still is hard! I’m not talking about numbing-out-to-Netflix stillness. I’m talking, wait-here-until-God-does-something-because-you-are-out-of-options stillness.

In Exodus 14, God’s people were trapped between Pharaoh’s mighty army and a deep and foreboding sea. They did what most of us would do, what I definitely would have done in such a situation: they panic.

¹⁰ As Pharaoh approached, the Israelites looked up, and there were the Egyptians, marching after them. They were terrified and cried out to the Lord. ¹¹ [The Israelites] said to Moses, “Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you brought us to the desert to die? What have you done to us by bringing us out of Egypt? ¹² Didn’t we say to you in Egypt, ‘Leave us alone; let us serve the Egyptians’? It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the desert!”

Panic is an enemy of faith. It’s an enemy of peace. Panic gets us nowhere but into a flurry of unnecessary, unhelpful, unwise activity.

Yet in the midst of their fear, camped out on the edge of the Red Sea, weaponless, defenseless, hopeless, men, women, and children all, God has a special lesson for them.

¹³ 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. ¹⁴ The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still.”

When you’ve done everything, be still.

When you’ve tried everything, be still.

When there is no way out, no way through, no way to go on, be still.

The Lord will fight for you.

Do you struggle to be still? What has God taught you about letting him fight for you?