March 9/D68: The Battle Of Silence (Ex. 14-18)

0:00in the 11th hour God parted the sea. All he needed them to do was to walk in silence. Welcome to Rinse Reflect Repeat, the daily podcast inspired by my action-driven devotional and guide to reading the Bible through in a year alphabetically. I'm Anita Cordell, and each day we'll walk through the Bible discovering how even books like Leviticus and numbers speak to our daily lives. These short devotional are here to cleanse our hearts and transform our perspectives. So, grab your Bible, open your heart, and let's journey through the living water together. It's time to rinse, reflect, and repeat. Well, we are walking through Exodus and going through the story of Moses and the title for today's devotion is the Battle of Silence. We're on day 68 and we're on March 9th if you're

1:01following the date. And so today's morning rinse is a little longer. You actually have to read five chapters, but they're not super long, but read Exodus 14 through 18, and then come on back and let's talk about this title. So the featured verse is Exodus 14, 14. The Lord will fight for you while you keep silent. Moses' life was so full of cliffhangers. You know, I mean, leading hundreds of thousands of people through the wilderness was no small task. And by the time you get here to this moment, he has freed the Israelites and are on their way into the wilderness. But not only was Moses called to rescue the people, but he was called to move them to the promised land. I mean, there's two parts to that. He was called to rescue them, and he was called to

2:05get them to the promised land, like leading them through battles, teaching them along the way about faith, going to God on their behalf, and dealing with conflicts even within the people, and ultimately completing his mission. And scholars will say that it was not supposed to take 40 years, but it did, because they were complaining. And it's amazing how that so much can be learned from this story. During the battles that the Israelites faced, there is a message that is often overlooked though. You know, because while they were out there in the wilderness, they faced a ton of these battles. You know, they got freed and rescued from the Egyptians. But when you enter into a whole new land and they're trying to cross, there's other people that are defending their areas, their territories. And so they faced battles. And there's a message that I want to share with you. The first battle in today's morning rinse that we read was when the Egyptians chased them down,

3:12and they were about to overtake them again. You know, they were faced with, oh my goodness, all these people are behind me. And there's a sea in front of me, and I'm trapped by this sea on one side and the Egyptian shoulders on the other side. And how scary this moment had to have been for them. I mean, can you imagine, you know, hundreds of thousands of Israelites freaking out and probably some of them seeing the Egyptians on the horizon in horses and chariots in the whole bit. I mean, I would be screaming. I'm like, I would be screaming. I'd be like, help. You know, what do we do? And I can imagine that it was a bit chaotic. And while the Israelites though were complaining and fearing death, the angel of God and the pillar of cloud moved and stood in between the Israelites and the Egyptians so that they could walk across the sea.

4:14To think that they experienced this in visual impact, it wasn't a movie. It was right then. Today's featured verse shows Moses' response. And the Israelites did not need to do anything. They didn't need to say anything. They didn't need to do anything except walk in silence on the path God opened for them. In the 11th hour, God parted the sea. All he needed them to do was to walk in silence. I bet that was so hard, you know, or maybe it was easy for some people as they were consuming all of what was going around them. Maybe they walked in silence because they were afraid of the walls of water coming down on them or maybe they were walking in silence just basically because Moses said, be quiet, don't talk, you don't talk. You know, but all he needed them to do was to walk in silence. Then also in today's morning rinse, there's a second battle where

5:19they were attacked again and this time by the army of Amolec. Miraculously, the Israelites, they prevailed in the battle when this was when Moses was on the top of the hill and he raised his hands in the air and every time he raised his hands in the air, then the Israelites would win. But they began losing when his hands were let down. And so as Moses sat on this rock, I'm sure he was praying and talking to God like God, what in the world his action was to sit there with his hands in the air. And obviously, you know, he got some help, they held up his hands because he got tired, but both examples are victories of God and both examples are when a battle was won in the quietness of faith and obedience and that peaceful resolve of silence coupled with action

6:22that people were quiet in the first one. And Moses, I'm sure, was quiet and silently raising his hands on the rock. Can you imagine the Israelites' entire camp silently walking across the sea while just so much chaos of the Egyptian army tries to get around the pillar of fire in the cloud. I mean, I'm sure that, you know, they turn around and we're watching the horses trying to maneuver around and they were trying to get around it as best as they could because they wanted to obey the leader. They had to obey the leader. Pharaoh was like, go get them and that's what their mission in life was is to go get the Israelites. Then can you imagine Moses sitting in kind of, and I use the word peaceful resolve, but I'm sure that he had a confidence to him with his hands in the air as the Israelites win another battle. Like one more time they win a battle

7:26and all he's doing is sitting there with his hands in the air. I can imagine that if you're listening to this, you've had experiences where you might be battling something and whether it's, you know, trying to raise your children and having struggles with, oh my goodness, they're teething today and they're just really extra cranky or there's something going on or my grandbabies, one of them deals with food allergies and so the struggle with that and another grandbabie has diabetes and so handling and managing insulin and stuff. I can't imagine all the things that my daughter and son-in-law deal with on a day-to-day basis and sometimes those day-to-day basis challenges can feel like there's this inward battle, whatever we're facing. Maybe there's somebody at work that just continually causes strife. Those are like little battles that on a day-to-day basis make it feel like it's our world can be very chaotic around us and maybe in those times could it be

8:31to instead of getting frustrated or instead of raising our voices at the kids or instead of complaining to employee one about employee two in the frustrations and the things that we don't understand about why people do certain things, could it be time to just sit in silence and just talk to God? Maybe you're sitting in silence is, hey, I need about 10 minutes, I'm going to drive around and just have a moment where I'm just driving around in my car. Could it be, hey, I need 45 minutes of a bath right now because I need a moment of silence? Could it be that you just need to sit in silence for just a little? And sitting in silence, I'm not going to lie, it is not always easy. It's not like you can separate your whole entire world and just go off somewhere and leave the cares behind you in a moment's notice. No, that's not how it works. We still have family, we still have a spouse, we still have life going on.

9:37So it's not always easy. In fact, sitting in silence can actually be its own battle in and of itself, but the battle of silence with God will win the wars. So today's challenge to dig deeper is to look at your life and is there some chaos going on in your day to day life or is it even more of a battle going on like some major struggle that is happening in your world? Have you been caught complaining about your situation? My challenge to you is to seek God today in this matter. Whatever you're dealing with, seek Him about it. Sit with Him in silence, fight through the battle of silence and sit with Him and let your heart hear His voice instead of the chaos around you.

10:38Even if it's five minutes, if you have to sit, close your eyes and just force yourself to hear His voice and focus on His voice instead of the things that are raging around you. And then when you pull out your journal and you reflect on today, I am sure I'm pretty confident that you're going to have an opportunity at some point today to sit in silence because there will be some chaos around you or something struggling that you are faced with. Maybe it's even time management struggle, sit in silence, but reflect on that. What is it that God is asking you to be silent about? Did you find it difficult to stop complaining about this situation? Did you find it difficult to find peace in the storm? Was it even a battle to get to being silent? But once you

11:38were there in the silence, in that five minutes or 10 minutes or 15 minutes or 30 minutes or whatever length of time it was when there, maybe it's a challenging phone call that you get today and you remember this, push through the battle and see the battle of silence and how that it can win the wars. So reflect on that today. Reflect on what it felt like and how it made you feel to sit in silence and then write down, was there something that God said to you? Was there some affirmations or empowerment that God just brought the peace back to your heart because ultimately when we have that peace in our heart, it is going to overflow into other people. And do we want our loved ones and friends to feel the overflow of our peace or do we want them to feel the overflow of complaining

12:42and chaos and lack of peace and complete discord? What is it that we want? And if we are fighting the good fight of faith, we sometimes have to fight for silence and fighting for that peace. And I can't wait to hear what happens today and whether that battle of silence came to you easily or whether it was a battle in and of itself. And I hope that this encourages you and you remember today, especially when in futuristic battles come to remember the battle of silence is worth it. If you don't have my devotional yet and you're watching this or listening, please go to the show notes and order it and I hope that you are encouraged by this also too. When I say evening reflection and you are looking for something to write these evening reflections on, my journal is the reason why I made it because of years and years and years of note-taking. I know that it

13:47is so important to go back to those notes. I've read things from 10, 15, 20 years ago and it just is so cool to see how much I've grown and things that God has brought me through and it's so encouraging. So I encourage you to, if you haven't gotten it, go ahead and get it and also to if you haven't joined my Facebook group called Rinse Reflect Repeat Devotional, then come on by and I love to read the stories of people who post on there. So please, you encourage my heart when you post and so feel free to do that as well. And until tomorrow, keep Rinse Reflecting and Repeating. God bless you.