Exodus 13-15
"I will harden Pharaoh’s heart so that he will pursue them.
Then I will receive glory by means of Pharaoh and all his army,
and the Egyptians will know
that I am Yahweh.”
So the Israelites did this.”
Exodus 14:4
God intentionally used the enemy as the means of revealing something to His people.
I repeat, God used the enemy as a means of revealing Himself and His power and His glory and His awesomeness to His people. The Israelites had been oppressed for 430 years! Oppression means that these Egyptians made them work, work, work to gain and earn their meager comforts, which never lasted very long. They rarely got a moment to enjoy and rest in life when they were under the oppression by their enemies. Life was not good when they remembered their enemies, yet here they are again! Their enemies are showing up, and they are probably being reminded of the life they suffered under the oppression of their slave drivers! Yet it says....God was using the faces of their enemies to show up again because this time....THIS TIME it was different.
Same enemies, same oppressors, same faces, but this time God was using them as a means of showing His people that the memories they had of them were to be redeemed, renewed, rewired and remade to now fear God. It was those embedded memories and experiences of oppression and pain that God was wiping out of His people by using them again to show up so that God could prove that they no longer had a power over them!
I imagined my own struggles and bondages to be in pursuit of me when I walk away from them, how they look so soon to be upon me again, taking me back into bondage, and my heart becomes so hardened and afraid. I become stricken with fear and doubt because those faces are the faces of what once was killing me. The faces of my struggles are the faces of my enemies, and in war the enemy is the one trying to kill you. So it seems very counterintuitive to let it come close! But God reminds us that in order to show us He is greater He will use the faces of those we once considered an enemy to approach us, but this time it won't be to take us back into bondage. This time it will be God on our side showing us that what we once feared is no longer to be feared because God is the one using our enemies' faces as friendly rather than fearful. Just as a Father would show his child there is nothing under the bed by first going under the bed himself and then directing his child to look and do the same so that what once haunted and scared him can be exposed as the empty threat it really is. God uses our past enemies and struggles to confront us again until we see them for what they truly are: threats in our minds that need to be untangled and renewed so that we fear God alone.
“But Moses said to the people,
“Don’t be afraid.
Stand firm and
see the Lord’s salvation
He will provide for you today;
for the Egyptians you see today,
you will never see again.
The Lord will fight for you;
you must be quiet.”
Exodus 14:13-14
So while they are being chased by their enemies God is saying "be quiet" which sounds like "be still" and pretty much stop trying to figure out what will happen. The Lord sent these faces of your past oppressors to you for His purposes because He has something He wants to show you, but you have to be quiet. Don't be afraid.
But being quiet in those moments is never a peaceful thing. The reason it's not peaceful is because the wiring in my mind is still connected to memories of pain that quickly resurface when I see the faces of my enemies like "Ugliness-Ursula," "Rejection-Raymond" "Loneliness-Larry," "Betty-Boredom," and "Worthlessness-Wilma" those faces remind of me of the pain that each one brought me at some point in time or that have been threats of pain for me that I feared before they ever even happened! I feared something that either existed in my past or that never even existed except in my own mind about the future. So when those enemies begin their approach from a distance, the last thing I want to do is be quiet and be still... I want to yell at them to go away and run!
I don't hang on the prior fact that it was my good Father who sent the enemy in the first place! My good Father is in control! He is training my physical and emotional senses not to be afraid in this life.
Just as God was doing for His people in the story of Exodus. My training is one of first, being quiet when I'm being chased so that soon enough I can be doing good when I'm no longer fearing the past or the future of being chased ever again. There are days I can willingly work for the glory of God and praise Him while I serve because I taste His goodness and His love which enable me to serve from an abundance! But there are days and moments when I begin to serve from a need or a fear rather than from an overflow of Him. I burn out, I see the enemies approaching and I freak out, and those are the days when I am called to be still again. To face the enemy and be still, because this time God sent them to remind my mind, to renew my mind, that what once made me afraid--loneliness, rejection, worthlessness, ugliness, and boredom--is now being used by God as a means of showing me that there is nothing to fear. He uses that which once gave us so much pain to deliver us from the bondage of those memories.
We must be still until we know that He is Yahweh, and once that fear is broken we can rejoice and do life with an abundance of Him!
“But You blew with Your breath,
and the sea covered them.
They sank like lead in the mighty waters.”
Exodus 15:10
This passage reminded me of:
"Then the LORD God formed the man out of the dust from the ground and breathed the breath of life into his nostrils, and the man became a living being"
Genesis 2:7
Breath of death and breath of life come from the same God.
He holds the power of both meaning that nothing can harm the ones He loves, not even death. So that even when my enemies and struggles pursue me, like Pharaoh pursued the Israelites, even when it looks like I've been captured by my struggles and that I'm doomed again, again, and again, I must remember that God holds the power of whether or not I am doomed because doomed means death. And so perhaps it is in those moments of feeling completely hopeless that God is showing me to be quiet and to stop despairing for no reason! I am His and because I am His, I cannot be overcome. So be still and know this truth. Be still in the face of your enemies. They are empty threats.
So honestly, the question deep within is, "God am I truly Yours?"
And I hear a soft tender whisper:
"Yes Jamie, you are Mine."
Everytime I hear that soft whisper.
I cannot despair when His voice reminds me of who I am. And then the peace that surpasses all understanding washes over me, because though the faces of my enemy are upon me once more, approaching me closer and closer, I hold on to the prior truth of the matter: that God is using them as a means of assurance for me. To be more sure of Him and who I am.
I need only to stand firm (basically just stay put) and be quiet.
"Don’t be afraid.
Stand firm and
see the Lord’s salvation
He will provide for you today;
for the Egyptians you see today,
you will never see again.
The Lord will fight for you;
you must be quiet.”
Exodus 14:13-14
The Lord fights for me everyday, and He uses the empty threats of my enemies to tear down the strongholds of fear in me until they are completely obliterated.
If the faces of your past enemies are in your rear-view mirror today, consider the Word of the Lord and stand firm...know that your mind is in need of being renewed, be quiet and stand firm.
The Lord fights our battles for us everytime. We just keep winning.
Jmegrey
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