They were surrounded. Six hundred Egyptian chariots were thundering – fueled by their fury and hatred for God’s people – through the desert and into Pi Hahiroth. The Israelites’ newfound freedom, which they had been rejoicing in only moments before, seemed to be withering away right before their eyes like a sweet dream turned nightmare. What about His promise? What about the freedom they had been waiting, pleading and crying out for, for centuries before them? What about His goodness? The Israelites were seemingly trapped, surrounded – on one side was a wall of impending doom in the form of Pharaoh’s powerful army, and on the other side, the vastness of the Red Sea. To the naked eye, the Israelites had met their end; the battle had finally been won by the Egyptians that had enslaved the Israelites and their ancestors for hundreds of years. They began to quiver, looking to Moses with tears of anger and defeat in their panic-stricken eyes while shouting, “Was it because there are no graves in Egypt that you brought us to the desert to die?! What have you done to us by bringing us out of Egypt? Didn’t we say to you in Egypt, ‘Leave us alone; let us serve the Egyptians?’ It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the desert!” As the chariots grew closer, white-hot fear spread like wildfire through the people of Israel like a lethal disease, as they began to shrink back into the darkness of their own doubt. Moses, who had been called by God Himself to lead these very people out of their slavery, turned and shouted over the crashing of the waves and the clamor of the horses, “Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the Lord will bring you today. The Egyptians you see today you will never see again. The Lord will fight for you, you need only to be still.”

What a gut wrenching, knee shaking, fall to the floor feeling as those Israelites stood before the seemingly all-powerful Egyptian army. Can you imagine?! You’ve finally been given the freedom you had hoped and fought for your entire life, freedom your ancestors never got to experience. And then to be tragically faced with the horrific realization that it could all be taken away from you in one single moment. 

Isn’t it insane how a moment, a single second, has the power to completely change your life forever? A choice, a diagnosis, a death of a child or loved one, a betrayal. One single moment, and you are no longer the same person you were mere minutes before. Your life threatens to never look the same – comfortable, familiar, safe. Instead of walking with the Lord in peace, you are running away in fear and your mind has become a slave to the doubt and worry that seek to destroy you. The “what if” eats at you in the middle of the night, as sleep evades and angst consumes. What if I have cancer? What if I can’t protect my children from their own choices? What if I fail as a parent or a spouse? What if my husband or wife decides I am no longer enough? What if I can’t hold my family together? One single moment, and God becomes last on our list as we strive to take control.

In the beginning of Exodus chapter 14, what you may not know is this – God instructed Moses to lead the Israelites to Pi Hahiroth – where the Egyptians would eventually come for them. God knew that bloodthirsty Pharaoh would come for His people, but God led them there anyway. He could have easily told Moses to take them somewhere else, somewhere safe and hidden so the Egyptians wouldn’t find them. But as the story unfolds, we see that that’s not what our loving, gracious God decided to do. He led them into the fire, into the battle, knowing full well that they wouldn’t be able to defend themselves on their own. If you read on, it tells of a literal pillar of fire coming down from the heavens and separating the Israelites from the Egyptian army. You find a remarkable, almost unbelievable, miracle of the Red Sea splitting in half as six hundred thousand of God’s people walk through it on dry ground – untouched and unharmed. You find the Egyptians destroyed and defeated, and you realize that the Israelites did nothing to win this battle on their own. They didn’t lift a single sword. God went to war on behalf of His people despite their accusations of His character, and despite their fear. He won the battle for them, fighting and displaying His mighty hand even though they doubted His goodness.

Exodus chapter 14 is the perfect depiction of how I react to the “what if”.  Friends, I am the dang Israelites! When life is good, when it’s easy and flowing in my direction, I can sing His praises all day long! Give me a megaphone and I’ll tell you how good my God is! I’ll shout of His faithfulness; I’ll preach about His grace and how much He loves us and wants us to be who He calls us to be! Girl, straighten that crown – Jesus loves you! Because when life is easy, it’s easy to believe His goodness. But when life goes bad, when life gets hard, and I don’t mean bad haircut kind of hard, I mean waiting for test results and a diagnosis kind of hard. I mean finding out a friend betrayed you in the deepest way kind of hard. I mean sitting at the funeral of an innocent child kind of hard. When life gets hard, my human instinct is to turn and run in the other direction. My God – the One who I so strongly believed in mere moments before – instantaneously turns into my opponent as I put my arms up toward Him in a stance of self-preservation. “You said you were good!” I shout with angry tears running down my face, and “what ifs” racing through my troubled mind. I yell my accusations, I point my finger, I build my walls and turn my back on the One sitting there silently as I question His character and love for me. I keep Him at arm’s length because it is easier to blame Him than to face the reality of my situation. The reality that I am actually going to have to deal with this, and the more difficult reality that I’m not sure if I can handle what’s happening to me. When I feel like my life is turning to ashes, I am the Israelites against the Egyptians. I am the Israelites against my God.

Through each valley, I have started to recognize this pattern of an unhealthy reaction to my life’s interruptions. The Lord has used these hard situations to make me see the areas in my life that still need His touch. Trust is a major one because I don’t freak out with Him – I freak out against Him. Can He handle it? Yes. Does it surprise Him? Heck to the no. But what am I missing out on when I decide to hide from Him instead of hiding myself in Him? I miss out on a peace that surpasses all understanding. I miss out on the opportunity to hear His voice through my struggle. I miss out on the ability to watch Him fight my battle for me. And I completely miss how breathtakingly powerful He really is because I am too distracted by my “what ifs” that spew out in anger.

The title ‘Warrior’ isn’t given because you carry your sword on your own, beloved. You are given the title ‘Warrior’ because you have recognized how immeasurably weak you are and admitted your need for a God that will throw every single punch on your behalf. A punch driven by a love so deep and fueled by an anger so debilitating because He can’t stand that the enemy would even consider messing with His child. All we have to do is trust that even if the flames grow bigger, even if the test results come back positive, He’s holding us. Love – He’s got you. You can resist Him all you want. It doesn’t change who He is and it definitely could never change His profound love for you. He brings you to these battles because He’s trying to teach you and me that He is our only shield through the storm. He’s the ace we play when everyone else thinks we’re out of  cards. He’s going to fight for you, whether you resist Him or not, but you get to choose if you miss it or experience it.

This is how Warriors fight their battles.  When everyone else sees you as “surrounded” you get to choose to be surrounded by Him. You can choose to remain where you are – unchanging, stagnant and an angry worrisome mess on the floor. Or, you get to choose to watch your God do great things in the midst of your battle. You get to come out on the other side stronger, wiser and changed in a way you never would have been had you not walked through the fire. As Warriors, it is a given that struggle will come and that war will ensue. So let’s welcome the fire with the kind of peace that makes the flames tremble. A kind of peace that screams to the inferno we do not fight with our own strength, but with a strength that no enemy dare stand against.