Read the transcript from today's video devotional.
When we hear the words "just stay calm" and we think about being calm, usually what we think of is serenity. We're in a meadow, there's a brook flowing nicely, there's birds chirping, there's soft Zen music playing, and that somehow produces a calm.
That is not at all the context of this verse. That's one of the things that I absolutely love about the context and really how powerful this message is that Moses is saying to Israel. The context of this verse, when he says, "The Lord Himself will fight for you. Just stay calm," isn't that they were sitting down and relaxing and he's preparing them for something. No- they were actually in the midst of it.
When You Don’t Know What to Do
This was when Pharaoh's army is driving up behind them. We have a whole army coming up behind them, desiring to either kill them or bring them back into slavery. On the other side of them is the Red Sea. To them, these are the circumstances. They can't see anything else except for, “this is coming up behind me, and that's what's in front of me, and I don't know what to do. We don't know what to do. This is crazy.”
Here, Moses to them—probably a crazy man in this moment—is saying it'll be okay. Just stay calm. It's like, are you kidding me? What? Look at the circumstances we're in right now. Guess what they did? They actually said in this passage, "We warned you about this, Moses. You should have just left us in Egypt. We want to just go back to Egypt then, because at least we would have stayed alive."
The Temptation to Return
As crazy as that may sound for us, now that we know that God parted the Red Sea and He allowed them to cross on dry ground to get away from the enemy, and actually fought the battle, as Moses said, for them. Imagine if all of it changed. If we could rewrite the story and actually have none of that occur, and Israel surrender to Pharaoh, go back into Egypt, some of them being killed, but go back into Egypt and being in slavery again. Imagine if that was the story.
The reason why this verse is so powerful is because when we get in these tough situations where we have bad things in front of us, bad things behind us, our past is coming up on us, and the future doesn't look that great, we tend to default to things that the Lord saved us from—our sin, our past, what we're comfortable with, as far as going back to our old ways or past.
Trust God's Plan
In the midst of it, if you are able to trust God through it and stay calm and understand He's got a plan. If you allow God to work His plan in and through you and you're just patient, you're staying calm to know that even though it doesn't look good in the situation you're in right now, God has a plan. If you're willing to stay with Him instead of going back to the things that enslaved you before, you're able to allow God to perform something that's miraculous in your life. You'll be able to look back and see what God is able to do, instead of looking back and saying, "I wonder what could have happened if I didn't just go back to my old ways."
God Has Something Greater
God has something in store in front of you that you can't even see right now, because there's a sea of circumstances in front of you. Stay calm. God wants to fight this battle for you. He's got something great if you can just stay calm and allow God to do the work in and through your life, because He has a plan that you can't see right now.
God's going to perform something you never dreamt was possible. Just be faithful. Trust Him through it.
