Wednesday, June 30, 2021

Exodus 14:14 -- On Holding Our Peace

"The Lord shall fight for you, and ye shall hold your peace."
Exodus 14:14


This is right after Moses had led the children of Israel out of Egypt. The people see the Egyptians following them and they complain to Moses that it would have been better to stay slaves than to die free in the wilderness. This is part of Moses' response. And of course the Lord did fight for them, and things worked out.

I wonder how often things like this happen in our lives, and we are just as prone to complain as the Israelites were. God asks us to do something, and we do it halfheartedly and it doesn't immediately work out the way we wanted it to, or it isn't as easy as we thought, or tragically we have to expend some effort... and we are back to complaining, asking God why he asked us to start down this road, why the commandments exist, why we pray or go to church, or even question our belief in God because things aren't going perfectly, as we think they should.

At times like that, perhaps we should remember this verse, and hold fast to our peace. Things are going to happen according to the Lord's timing, not ours... and his is infinitely superior anyway. Doing things the Lord's way will always work out in the end. There will probably be setbacks along the way, and even the promised land is going to require a lot of effort. It's all still worth it though, and all of it together is designed for our good, to help us to become the incredible beings that we have the potential to be.

Today, let's hold our peace a little more and complain a little less, and listen to the Lord and do his will rather than our own. As we do, we'll be led and blessed, and we can be sure that things will turn out well in the end. God has already written the happy ending.

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