The LORD Himself will
fight for you.
Just stay calm.
Exodus 14:14
Spring has come not only back home but there on the Race for
me, and it’s come in the form a of a new team.
My team is now made up of Janell King, Carmen Oswalt, Leslie Redman, and
myself. We laugh so much we probably
sound like lunatics, and their presence around me is like a sweet spring coming
after winter. As we step into this new
season as a team we are seeing the sovereignty of our Father in putting us
together. After about a week of
thinking, praying, and waiting on the Lord for revelation, we found our new
name and identity: Team Exodus.
Now before you start thinking of plagues, the death of
hundreds of Egyptians and decades in the desert, let me share with you a little
of what the Lord has been speaking to us about who we are and what His promises
for us are.
In a way so beautiful only the Abba could have orchestrated,
we were each led to different passages with underlying themes.
When Pharaoh
finally let the people go, God did not lead them along the main road
that runs through
Philistine territory, even though
that was the
shortest route to the Promised Land.
God said, “If the
people are faced with a battle, they might change their minds
and return to
Egypt.”
So God led them in
a roundabout way through the wilderness toward the Red Sea.
Thus the
Israelites left Egypt like an army ready for battle.
Exodus 13:17-18
The Lord Himself
will fight for you. Just stay calm.
Exodus 14:14
The Lord will fight for us.
Even when the way He chooses doesn’t make sense, even when we can’t see
the final purpose, we know that He will choose the path that will redeem us and
bring Him the most glory. My teammate
Leslie reminded us that if we leave equipped for battle, the things we desire
will follow. A willingness to be
equipped is all we need.
___________________________
“O Lord, I am not
very good with words. I never have been,
and I’m not now, even though you have spoken to me. I get tongue-tied, and my words get tangled.”
Then the Lord
asked Moses,
“Who makes a
person’s mouth? Who decides whether
people speak or o not speak, hear or do not hear, see or do not see? Is it not I, the Lord
Now go! I will be with you as you speak, and I will
instruct you in what you say.”
Exodus 4:10-12
The cloud of the
Lord hovered over the Tabernacle during the day,
and at night fire
glowed inside the cloud
so the whole
family of Israel could see it.
This continued
throughout all their journeys.
Exodus 40:38
It is He who makes us holy, we are covered in His
glory. In light of His power our
inadequacies and fears are inconsequential, for it is by His will that we are
made worthy to speak. Like Moses, we are
in the process of being made holy and understanding the full authority we are
in possession of. We are His Tabernacle
and His glory covers us, even when it is not as tangible as a cloud or a glow
of fire upon us, we know that His covering will be with us through all our
journeys. Where you go, I will go. What you say, I will say, God.
___________________________
Then Moses led the
people of Israel away from the Red Sea,
and they moved out
into the desert of Shur.
They traveled in
this desert for three days without finding any water.
Exodus 15:22
That evening vast
numbers of quail flew in and covered the camp.
And the next
morning the area around the camp was wet with dew.
When the dew
evaporated, a flakey substance as fine as frost blanketed the ground.
The Israelites
were puzzled when they saw it.
“What is it?” they
asked each other. They had no idea what
it was.
And Moses told
them, “It is the food the Lord has given you to eat.”
Exodus 16:13-15
God’s provision is most fully understood when it comes to
you in place of thirst and hunger. Our
lips are parched for more of Him, our stomachs groan and ache to be filled with
an abundance of His goodness. We have
been led through some hard times on the Race, and those hardships have produced
a thirst and hunger that only God can satisfy – and that is what we want. We want more.
___________________________
So I have come
down to rescue them from the power of the Egyptians
and lead them out
of Egypt into their own fertile and spacious land.
It is a land
flowing with milk and honey.
Exodus 3:8
The Lord caused
the Egyptians to look favorably on the Israelites,
and they gave the
Israelites whatever they asked for.
Exodus 12:36
For the land you
are about to enter and take over is not like the land of Egypt from which you
came,
where you planted
your seed and made irrigation ditches with your foot
as in a vegetable
garden. Rather, the land you will soon
take over is a land
of hills and
valleys with plenty of rain – a land that the Lord your God cares for. He watches over it through each season of the
year.
Deuteronomy
11:10-12
The promises that He has made to us, the prophesies that
have been spoken over us, the dreams we have dreamed that He has answered,
“Yes!” to – they are coming to form. He
has made a covenant with us, and we will posses those promises. Like the Israelites, we are heading to the
Promise Land where blessings flow and the Spirit will dwell with us. This wilderness, this season of waiting that
we are passing through will cease to be and in it’s place is coming a time of
promises being fulfilled. A time where
we will walk with His favor upon us, where we will ask for things and they will
be given.
Now please don’t misunderstand this to be a merely boast
about all the good things God is going to give us or any self-endorsement. This is the mentality we should all have, we
are His chosen people and you have just as much of a right as I do to claim
these things in Jesus name and wait with expectancy for His abundance to pour
out. We asked God what He thought of us,
we asked Him to tell us who we are, and He told us. So if this all seems strange to you, take a
minute and seriously ask God what He thinks of you, ask Him to tell you who you
are, and wait and see what kind of beautiful words and parallels He makes. Seriously, I dare you.
