Be Still

You know, every time I think the world has gotten about as crazy as it can, it gets a little crazier.  First we had the economy shut down because of the corona virus.  Then we had the terrible killing of George Floyd.  Then, we had the riots in the aftermath of that killing.  Then, we had a group in Seattle take over part of the town and declare itself separate from the United States.  Then, we had people try to force Paw Patrol off the air and take a gun away from Elmer Fudd.  And then, just to put a cherry on top of everything, we had to start arguing about the patch on the Gettysburg police uniform again.

You hear all this, and you just shake your head.  Or at least, I do.  I wonder if the whole world has gone crazy, or if it’s just me.  I wonder if I should be trying to do something about all this, or at least saying something about it.  But I don’t know what I could do about it, and I really can’t think of anything I could say that would be helpful.  Besides, I don’t hear a great clamor from the public demanding to know what Jeff Adel thinks about all this, and I really can’t think of any reason why there should be such a clamor.  So, I was pretty much at a loss, and was feeling kind of helpless.

But then all of a sudden, as I was thinking about all this, I thought of Exodus 14:14.  Now, I’ll admit I didn’t realize it was Exodus 14:14.  I had to look that up.  But I remembered what it says.  It says, “The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still.”

Think about the context in which the Bible says this.  The people of Israel are on the run from Egypt.  They had been there as slaves, God had put a series of plagues on Egypt, and the Pharaoh had finally let them go.  But now, the Pharaoh has decided he wants the people of Israel back as slaves.  He’s sent the Egyptian army after them.  Israel did not have an army.  They did not have any weapons with which to fight.  The people of Israel think they’re done for.  They tell Moses it would’ve been better for them to just have stayed in Egypt, to have stayed as slaves, than to be killed by the Egyptian army in the desert.

Moses answers them by saying they have nothing to worry about.  They don’t have to fight.  God will fight for them.  And then, of course, Moses uses God’s power to part the Red Sea, leads the people of Israel across, and the Red Sea closes back up around the Egyptian army, destroying it.

And so, as I thought about the current situation, I thought, I don’t have to feel at a loss.  I don’t have to feel helpless.  God is going to handle this situation, just like God handled things for the people of Israel and just like God has handled things since before the beginning of time.  In fact, God is already handling it.  We may not see it.  We may not know what God is doing or what God is going to do.  But God already has it handled.  God will fight these things for us.  We need only to be still.

Now, in being still, that does not necessarily mean we sit back and do nothing.  It means we don’t panic, we keep plugging away, and we keep doing the best we can.  Do the best we can to love God and stay faithful to God.  Do our best to love our neighbors.  Do our best to be there for each other.  Do our best to treat others and we would like them to treat us.  Do our best to go and make disciples of Jesus Christ.  Do our best, knowing that God is taking care of things and that things are going to work out the way they’re supposed to, in God’s way and at God’s time.

So, if you feel like the world has gone crazy, know that God is still in control.  God will fight for us.  In fact, God is already fighting for us.  And God will prevail.  All we need to is what it says in Psalm 46:10:  “Be still, and know that I am God.”