The Wading Pool

“You will not need to fight in this battle. Position yourselves, stand still and see the salvation of the LORD, who is with you, O Judah and Jerusalem!’ Do not fear or be dismayed; tomorrow go out against them, for the LORD is with you.”  2 Chronicles 20:17, NKJV

I’m reading through the books of I and II Kings and Chronicles, and this verse kind of smacked me today.  Why? I’m so glad you asked!

The background on this verse is that Judah was about to be invaded and seemingly destroyed by Moab, Ammon, and some other not-so-nice neighbors (hmmmm….sounds like current events).  These were nations that Israel was not allowed to defeat when they came to take possession of the Promised Land, and now they stood ready to destroy them.  So,  the king and all the people go before the Lord and cry out for Him to deliver them.

What struck me this time is that the Lord doesn’t just tell them that He’s going to be with them in battle, but that the battle is HIS.  They didn’t even need to fight.  They were to be still, be ready, and watch God move.  Oh yeah.  And they were to go out where the enemy was…but not fight…riiiiiiight.

Go read what God did.  Go read how He did exactly what He said He’d do.  They didn’t lift a finger.  God did it ALL.

The Christian life is filled with battles.  Many of them require our involvement (much more than we’d like, at times).  But there are those battles, like the one above, when God says “You can’t do it.  I got this.”  And we just sit and watch Him move.  We call it “deliverance” often (not the movie, before someone starts humming “Dueling Banjos”).  It’s when a situation seems utterly hopeless, when we realize we have no power to prevail on our own, we cry out to God, and He moves.  The battle is His.  I’m sure you all know stories like that.  I’m sure many of you have stories like that to tell.

Sometimes, we have to fight.  But other times, things can seem just too overwhelming, too hard, too impossible for us to do anything.  We feel completely immobilized in the face of some temptation, situation, fear.  In all cases, it’s God Who either goes with us in battle and gives us the strength to prevail, or goes before us and does it all.  Either way, the battle is the Lord’s.

So, in your battles, who’s fightin’ for ya?