Monday, January 17, 2011

Help in quietness

The other day in my devotions I read Ex. 14:14 which says, "The Lord will fight for you while you keep silent." I just love that promise! This verse keeps going on around in my head over and over. I think its because I usually associate battle with chaos, striving and fatigue, but here it is the total opposite; When I am resting in Him and keeping silent before Him, yielding myself and the battle over to Him, His role in the fight is even more pronounced. It's kind of like, if we were engaging the enemy in battle along side our fellow soldiers, our attention would be solely on where the enemy was at so that we could use our defensive moves and offensive moves against them. We wouldn't have any idea how our comrades were doing and what they were doing. But if we stepped aside from the battle and sat up on a hill above it and watched what was going on, we could focus on what each of our fellow soldiers were doing and how the battle was progressing. I'm finding the more I quiet myself before God, the more I purposely shut off the computer, close the books (even the Bible sometimes), shut my mouth, turn my mind off of what is going on around me, curl up on the couch and fix my eyes on Jesus, the more I'm seeing Him take over the areas of my life that I have been fighting for and battling with. I can't see what He is doing if I'm too wrapped up in the battle myself, using my own strength. It sounds so simple, why do we make it so complicated? One of the things I fear the most as I prepare to return to Kosova in July is to find myself getting caught up, once again, in the everyday battles of busyness. There is so much to do, there are so many needs to be met, there is so much organization that needs to be accomplished, so many people to visit, so many people to reach. It is easy to think that I need to be the one to engage in all of those "battles", in reality, I need to return to Kosova so that I can "rest" and be quiet before the Lord, then watch the Victor do His thing.