Seeing the Victory the Lord Wins for You Today

In today’s first reading, Exodus 14: 5-18, the Israelites are triumphantly leaving Egypt when the Egyptians regret letting them go and pursue them with their armies.  Seeing their pursuit, the Israelites are terrified and complain to Moses: Why didn’t you leave us alone? We’d rather be slaves to Pharaoh than perish in this desert!  Moses replies: “Fear not! Stand your ground, and you will see the victory the Lord will win for you today….The Lord Himself will fight for you; you have only to keep still.”

How often is that not the case for us, namely, that we need to remember that God takes our side when we are oppressed in any given situation, being taken advantage of, being abused, mistreated.  Rather than obsessing about something that, in no way, I have the power to change, I need to surrender to the Lord. In that surrendering, the Lord Himself will fight for me. I have only to keep still.  The temptation is to keep obsessing about the issue, proclaiming my anger and voicing my fears.  “Fear not! Stand your ground (when you are innocent and powerless to change what has happened or is happening), and you will see the victory the Lord will win for you today….The Lord himself will fight for you; and you have only to keep still.”  Do I turn a situation over to the Lord when, in truth, I have no control over it? When I am helpless—I’ve done everything in my power--to change something that needs to be changed or to address something that needs to be addressed, do I turn it over to the Lord and ask for His help, knowing that I “will see the victory the Lord will win for me,…[that] the Lord Himself will fight” for me?