Fighting Battles

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

“God will fight the battle for you. And you? You keep your mouths shut.” (Exodus 14:14 MSG)

I read this verse and my conversation with God usually goes a little something like this:

Me: Yeah…ok Jesus. I get it. But you see….I have a lot of thoughts about my battles. I definitely know the best way to handle this…

God: Do you see the whole picture from beginning to end?

Me: ……….. No.

God: Then you don’t know the best way to handle this, and if you keep trying to handle it 2 things are going to happen: 1. It isn’t going to work out like you think it will, and 2. You are going to be exhausted. So stop trying to be in control and let me fight for you. I am a big God, and I can handle it.

I’m not sure if your conversations ever go like that, but me and Jesus just have “real talk” regularly. Thankfully, He is never frustrated with me so He is cool with it if we have this conversation daily…which is about how often it happens. Jesus has been teaching me a lot about trust these past few months, and I thought I was doing pretty good until crisis happened and I realized I still have such a long way to go. It’s easy to trust God when things are going good. It’s easy to trust God when your relationships are good, work is good, kids are good, money is good, etc. It’s much harder to trust God when you are fighting with everyone you love, you have no money, you hate your job or don’t have one, and your kids can’t act right to save their own lives. THAT is always the moment when we want to look at God and say, “Dude. WHAT. THE. HECK?!?! WHERE ARE YOU??!?!” And Jesus’ response is always SO HELPFUL….. “Trust me.” Uh yeah….ok. Thanks for the help. Anyway, I guess I will just take control and fix this myself. What we don’t realize is the response we get from Jesus is quite simple, but it’s exactly what we need.

Jesus sees everything from beginning to end. It is impossible for us as humans to look at a situation unbiased. When we look at problems (even problems that are not our own) we look at them through the lens of our life, and all the baggage we carry around. We don’t know everyone’s story, and everything they have walked through; therefore, we can’t look at a problem and know all aspects. We also (in our own power) can’t see what the enemy is planning. Now, its totally possible and probable for God to reveal all these things to us; however, on our own we can’t see all these very important factors in problem solving. God however, can see all these things, and He knows everything. He knows the person’s story, He knows your story, He knows what actually happened, and He knows how everyone involved feels. That in itself makes him the best one for the job of fighting battles. God also knows that people don’t hurt us…the enemy hurts us. God is a perfect warrior at defeating Satan. God knows that Satan is the enemy, and Satan should be held accountable for our hurts…not each other.

All this is really easy to say…it’s much harder when you are in the middle of a crisis. I believe what strengthens your faith the most is when you give God a chance to fight a battle for you. I’m a serious control freak, and I believe that I am a great problem solver. However, it is important for me to remember that I’m really not in control of anything, and things are going to go a lot easier for me if I let Jesus handle it.

I want to encourage you to give God one chance. The next time a battle comes along let God handle it. Sit back, be still, and shut up. You are going to have plenty of battles you can control, if you wish, in the future. Give God one chance to handle it for you, and just see what happens. Let him reveal to you the whole picture and give you a better understanding. Then trust him to handle it in a way that is best for everyone involved. I promise you that God is always going to do, not just the right thing, but the perfect thing.

He loves you so much and He is so good. He’s on your team, He’s got your back, and He WANTS to fight for you.

xoxo

Katie