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Elizabeth Barry
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Previous Posts
- The Grace We Need (Not The Grace We Want)
- Isn't It Nice to Know that the Lining Is Silver?
- What Part Do I Play?
- How Do I Love Those Who Have Hurt Me?
- I Bet You Can Hardly Contain Yourself
- Running on Empty
- A Purpose For The Pain
- A Mirror Is Harder to Hold
- What the Black Pearl Taught Me About God
- A Heavy Dose of You Know What!
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Stay Very Very Still
How do you win a battle?... Go ahead, think about it for a minute...what is the recipe, in your opinion, for victory?... The obvious ingredient, would seem to be...fight! If you don't fight, you don't win. Simple enough right? However, what if I told you that the key to victory is the opposite of fighting. I'm not talking about retreat, but being still. What battles are you fighting? How would
being still give you the victory?
This doesn't make total sense at first, but think about it: when battling fatigue & anxiety does fighting and activity offer us the victory, or is it resting and daring to be still. What about disease? Many of you have had surgery to have something fixed or taken out. What would have happened if you decided not to rest under the surgeon's knife? There are other scenarios that come to mind, but I think we get the gist.
What does being still look like to you?
One of my favorite stories of the Bible takes place in Exodus. The Israelites have been allowed to leave Egypt after many years of horrendous slavery, and just as they have tasted free air the Egyptians begin chasing after them. All of a sudden the Israelites end up at the edge of a HUGE sea, and are stuck between one of the biggest rocks and hardest places. They begin to call out to Moses, outwardly expressing their fear and questioning why God would bring them out of slavery to die, and then God answers through Moses:
And Moses said to the people, "Fear not, stand firm, and see the salvation of the LORD,
which he will work for you today. For the Egyptians you see today, you shall never see
again. The LORD will fight for you, and you have only to be silent."
Exodus 14:13-14
Does it take more courage to stand up or to be still and trust the hand of another? I would wager the second. If we are the one's taking the initiative then we are in control and we, at least according to us, can control the outcome. In my opinion, the first kind of courage, where our trust is put in ourselves, is a cheap imitation form of courage. It is a shadow of real courage. Real courage is kneeling in front of another, admitting we have little to no power over our circumstances, crying out for help, and then trusting the situation with them. This is the courage God calls us to. Read w/ me Psalms 46:10:
Be still, and know that I am God.
I will be exalted among the nations,
I will be exalted in the earth!
What happens we courageously still ourselves in front of God? He does the miraculous and gives us the victory. However, the victory isn't what we expected. Our victory is not always winning. John tells us what our victory is:
For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world.
And this is the victory that has overcome the world - our faith.
1 John 5:4
We may not get the outcome we desperately wanted, but instead we get something better, something eternal. This something cannot be breached and it cannot be beat. If we will dare to be courageously still in front of the God who is in control of all things we will be rewarded with a peace beyond understanding because we are resting in Him. In the words of an infamous actor: "Winning!"
posted by Skylar # 8:52 AM 