Priscilla Shirer - Fear Not
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Summary
Priscilla Shirer shares that God often allows us to go through difficult situations not to harm us, but to reveal His character and power up close, drawing from the Israelites' experience at the Red Sea in Exodus 14. She emphasizes Moses' four instructions—do not fear, stand still, watch for God's salvation, and keep silent—to help us navigate trials with faith. The key takeaway is that by trusting and obeying God through the process, we emerge knowing Him more intimately and stepping into the destiny He has prepared on the other side.
Opening Greeting and Introduction
Well, good morning, y’all. It is so good to see you. You may take your seats. It is a privilege, privilege, privilege to be here in New Zealand with you again. I just have so many incredible memories from two years ago when I was here, so to have an opportunity to come back and be with all of you at this incredible church is a joy for me. Not to mention, there are so many incredible women of God that are also here this weekend. You are going to just love hearing from Wendy Treat, Laura Tosos, and Dr. Carolyn Leaf. They are some of my favorite people, and I love that God is going to speak through them to all of us this weekend. So, to be able to partner with them in that effort is a real joy for me.
The Importance of Unpacking God's Word
I also thought about the fact that there are quite a few sessions you’re going to be in over the course of this weekend. There is a lot that God is going to share with you, and He is going to want you and me to inscribe it on our hearts and readjust and modify our lifestyles accordingly. Because, you see, God does not speak to be heard; He speaks to be obeyed. The reason why you’re here is that He has a word specifically for you. That is why He brought you; that is why He allowed you and me to be in this place. I was thinking about the fact that when I was on my way here, I had a trip a week or so ago, and my bag has kind of just sat in my bedroom, wanting to be unpacked but not quite unpacked. Does that ever happen to you where you just get home but don’t really ever unpack? I had kind of forgotten about the bag; it was just sitting there in the corner of my bedroom.
As I began to pack for New Zealand to come here and have an opportunity to be with you, I set everything out on the bed and lined up all the different stacks of things I needed to put in the suitcase. My boys were in the room with me, talking as I was packing. Then it was time; I had everything laid out, and it was time to put it in the bag. So, I went over to the bag with my first stack ready to put in. I lifted up the cover of my suitcase, realizing there was actually no room to put the new stuff in because I had forgotten to take out any of the old stuff. I thought, «That is so like me in my relationship with God too.»
I come to the next Sunday morning or the next conference, and God’s got new stuff to give me. The only thing is, I have not unpacked what it is He has already done; I have not done business with what God has already shared with me. So, I thought, just for a few moments this morning, before you and I go into this full day where God is going to set a banquet feast in front of us, listen: everything God wants to feed me— I want to feast on. Is anyone with me on that? It’s the worst thing in the world when there’s a banquet feast in front of you, but you’re too full. Isn’t that the worst? If there’s extra chocolate, I want to eat it. So, God has laid out a banquet feast for us today.
What if we just pray and ask the Lord to help us unpack steadily all day long everything He shares with us, to inscribe it not only in our hearts but to make strategic decisions and plans to live out what He shares with us so that we always have room for Him to continue to fill us up? Let’s pray together:
Prayer
Lord Jesus, thank You so much for this wonderful privilege and treat that we have to be in Your presence. Lord, we do not take it for granted that You, the God of the universe, would want to meet with us, speak to us, and that You would allow us to be in this room. There is not one of us under the sound of my voice that is here by accident or by chance. You planned this from the very foundation of the world, so I pray, Lord, that every spiritual ear will be open to hear Your word, starting with me all the way to the back of this room. Lord, our ears are open; we want to hear what You have to say. And so, Lord, just like Your servant Samuel, we say, «Speak, Lord,» because we are listening. We are making a commitment in advance to unpack the bags, Lord, to do something with what You give us today. Thank You, Lord, in Jesus' name. Amen.
The Turkey Trot and Jingle Bell Run Story
My sister and I, along with my mother, have this habit that when Thanksgiving rolls around in the U.S., we go on this little 5K walk-run together. It happens on Thanksgiving morning every single year in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, which is where I live in Texas. This run that happens on Thanksgiving morning is called the Turkey Trot. So we go out for the Turkey Trot. It is a lot of fun. I mean, there might be 50,000 people out there for the Turkey Trot, and so we all go out there early in the morning. It’s kind of cool; they serve some hot chocolate out there, and it’s just a fun kind of family thing to do together. When our kids were really little, we would take our strollers out there, and we would all push our strollers during this walk or run. You’re supposed to be running most of the time; we walk, and we would do this little run together, this adventure together on Thanksgiving morning. For some reason, this past Thanksgiving, we missed it. It just kind of snuck up on us. We hadn’t registered in time, and so we missed it.
So, as Thanksgiving came and went and the Christmas holidays approached, my sister got online and started to look for another run that we could participate in because it’s kind of a tradition of ours to do something. My mom was going to be traveling, so she was going to be away, but Crystal and I, my sister, still wanted to do this run. She found the Jingle Bell Run. It’s another run that takes place annually in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. We were so excited about the Jingle Bell Run. One of the reasons we were excited is because it happens at night, and it would be fun to run at night with 30,000 people. Because it is a holiday run, some folks come out there with reindeer antlers on a little band on their heads, or they’ve got glow lights wrapped around their necks or wrists. People have Jingle Bells. In fact, they pass out Jingle Bells when you arrive that you can tie on the shoelaces of your tennis shoes, so it’s just 30,000 Jingle Bells ringing as everybody runs through the night. It’s a whole lot of fun. They serve you hot chocolate when you get to the end of the three miles.
We actually did run these three miles this past Christmas for the Jingle Bell Run, and the run went right through an area of Dallas-Fort Worth called the Design District. Now, I wasn’t very familiar with the Design District. I have lived in the Dallas-Fort Worth area my entire life, but I haven’t really ventured into the depths of the Design District. I know exactly where it is and what it is. If anybody were to have asked me about the Design District, I would be able to point it out to them.
In fact, most people in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, even if they haven’t gone all the way into the Design District, know where it is because the main freeway that passes right through the city of Dallas is Highway 35. When you are driving north or south on Highway 35, there is a huge sign—a giant billboard right off the freeway—where the Design District is that says, «The Design District.» This is where a lot of interior designers, artists, photographers, and people like that have their own studios and things like that; they are stationed in this little area. So I knew exactly where it was, but this particular area started at a hotel that is in the Design District, and we ran throughout the streets of that particular area.
It’s the first time I’ve had an opportunity to kind of get into it and go through it. So there we were, running through the little streets of the Design District, and every now and then, I would tell my sister I needed to stop to see something interesting. Really, I just needed to catch my breath. I would run for a little while, and I would look at a studio—a wonderful studio that had art lining the walls. I would kind of look in the windows and see the art or the beautiful interior designs that some decorator had put together in her showroom, and I was very intrigued. Every few minutes, I would just stop and see a cute little café that I never knew was there. I’ve been in Dallas my whole life, and I’d never seen that photography studio or that artist’s studio or that decorator’s showroom. I’d never seen any of these details, even though I knew about them and had seen them from afar. I didn’t know any of the details until I went through it.
Knowing God Through Trials
In your relationship with God and in my relationship with God, it is not enough for Him to have children that just know about Him from afar who can point other people in His direction because, you know, they’ve been to church all their lives. They say, «Yeah, this is God. These are the scriptures. You know I read a verse a day to keep the devil away,» so you know, I’ve got a few little things in my arsenal to share with you about God. That’s not good enough for Him. He wants you to know the details. He wants you to know His character. He wants you and me to be introduced to what He loves and what He doesn’t love, what He likes and what He doesn’t like, what His personality is, and what His plan is for you. But most of the time, the only way that you and I will ever encounter the details of the character of God is when He takes us through something, when He allows us to be in a scenario in our lives that honestly we don’t particularly care for, that we have to go through in the power of the Holy Spirit, guarded by the strength of God around us.
And it is as we go through that particular season in our lives or that particular situation or issue that occurs in our marriage, finances, singleness, job, or ministries, it’s when we go through it that we really get to see who God is. If we were to take this little microphone that I have on and pass it around this room, starting at the very front row all the way to the very back, the reality is that if we were to give our testimony about the times we’ve really learned about who God is, for the majority of us, it would be during a season where we had to go through something. It is in those times that we learned what it means to lift our hearts up to God in prayer, to lean on Him, to trust Him, and to have faith in Him. All of that stuff is matured in our lives when we go through something. I wonder if there is anybody in the room this morning who is going through something. Is anyone? Just me? Yeah, through something. When you’re going through something—and by the way, if you’re not going through anything this morning, we want to say we are happy for you—but each and every one of us in this room are in one of three places in our lives: we’re either right smack dab in the middle of something right now, on our way into something, or on our way out of something. Jesus said in John 16:33, «In this world you will have trouble.» You don’t have to go looking for trouble; just keep living, and trouble will come and find you. But it’s while you and I go through it that we really get to see the details about who our God is, and listen, He wants to be known. He wants to reveal Himself to you. He doesn’t want you and me to be satisfied just hearing about Him at the conference or at church. He’s so glad that we hear about Him, but you and I should want more than anything to experience this God of the Bible. The same power we see demonstrated in the miracles of scripture should become the reality of our lives. We don’t just think this stuff is good for other people; we believe it’s true for us as well, that the same God who divided the Red Sea is the same God who can divide the problems of our lives. The same God who raised Lazarus from the dead is the exact same God who has the strength and the power to raise to life something in your life or mine that seems like it will never be resurrected again. He wants to be known, and so He takes you through it. He allows you to go through it for the privilege of bringing you out on the other side, bringing me out on the other side, more fully aware of the glory of God.
Turning to Exodus 14
If you have your Bibles with you and you want to turn with me, if you actually still use a Bible with paper pages like I do, or if you’ve got your iPad or your iPhone—any manner of device—just flip on over to Exodus 14. I think they’re going to put it on the screens as well. Exodus chapter 14. As you turn there, let me just tell you that the children of Israel have been released from about 400 years of captivity, and they are on a journey in the wilderness headed toward the promised land. In the midst of this adventure with God, He’s going to take them through something. There’s a problem, a scenario, a situation, a difficulty that they cannot figure out for the life of them how they’re going to be able to get across this difficulty so that they can move forward with God. Just like so many of us that are in a group this size, there have to be more than a handful of us who are right now staring at what looks like a very impossible and seemingly impassable situation, and you cannot for the life of you figure out how you’re going to be able to get through this so that you can move forward to what it is that God has for you. The children of Israel know exactly how you feel if you’ve ever been in that scenario because as they try to move forward toward the land of milk and honey that represents the grace and favor, the promises, the provision of God in the land of Canaan, they come across a problem called the Red Sea.
Verse 13: Moses says to the people, «Do not fear; stand by and see the salvation which He will—somebody say He will—He will accomplish for you today. For the Egyptians whom you have seen today, you will never see them again forever. The Lord will fight for you while you keep silent.» I’m going to read those two verses again: Moses said to the people, «Don’t make excuses about why you can’t get over the Red Sea. No excuses!» He says, «I’m going to tell you four things that will take you through and onward with God.» He says, «Do not fear because ain’t nobody got time for that. Stand by and see the salvation which the Lord will accomplish for you today. The Egyptians whom you’ve seen today, you will never see them again forever. The Lord will fight for you; He’s got your back while you keep silent.»
Four Keys from Moses
Four things I want to share with any of you who are going through something right now in your life or who will ever go through something in your life; that’s all of us. Moses says to the children of Israel the four exact things that the Holy Spirit of God wants to say to you and me today. He says: Be Fearless; do not fear. He says: Be Still; stand by. He says: Be Watchful; see the salvation of the Lord. And He says: Be Quiet.
All right, you and I are going to do business with these four little very simple things. These are actually very foundational, and sometimes the power of them, the potency of them, can be lost on us because they sound so simple. If I were your enemy, what I would want to do is devalue the importance of the most significant weapons that you have. If I could get you to think that the simple things were not critical to your success, to getting through something with your head held high in the power of God, if I were your enemy, I would want to disarm you of the very things that I knew were your ticket to success.
I want to hand you back the power, my friend, of the four things that Moses tells the children of Israel is their ticket through so that they can move forward with God. The first, and I think most critical of the four, is that Moses says to the children of Israel, «Be Fearless.» He says, «Do not be afraid.» This principle of choosing to live fearlessly—oh my goodness, you and I in the Church of Jesus Christ across the planet, and especially in this Bible-teaching Church, have heard so much about this issue, this principle of being Fearless, of not being afraid. We’ve heard it so much that sometimes we wonder whether or not we should even talk about it anymore because we’ve all just heard it so much. Fear can paralyze us. We wonder if I even sometimes think, «Man, is it a waste of time to spend too much time this morning on this one principle?» I thought about that this morning before I came. But it is fear that the enemy will use more than anything else to disable you from doing what God has for you. That’s why Moses needed to say to the children of Israel the exact same thing God’s Spirit wants to say to you again this morning: Do not be afraid! Y’all, this issue of fear is important, and it was so critical that in the scriptures, some rendition of this command is given over 300 times. It is said in different ways, different variations, but it’s basically the same thing: fear not, do not be afraid, be fearless! Fear ye not. Over and over and over again, in different ways, God wants to say to us the exact same thing. In fact, it is so critical and so important to Him that He gets to the New Testament and Paul writes a letter to a young man named Timothy, and he says, «Tim, this is what you need to know: He has not given us a spirit of fear.»
He says, «Of all the important things Timothy, that you need to know in your life and in this ministry that God is sending you through as you go through things in this journey of life that you will inevitably go through, would you remember that what our God does not give—and by the way, our God is in the gift-giving business—but one thing that He will never wrap up and tie a bow on to give you is fear. He just doesn’t do fear; that’s just not the way He rolls. He gives power and love and a sound mind.» Look at the woman next to you and say, «Girl, you have a sound mind. You are not insane. You are not crazy.» Because the reality is sometimes we don’t feel that we have a sound mind, do we? We hit the right traffic jam on the right day. The kids have the right argument in the right setting. The chores that we have lined up at our job or in our home, if they line up just the right way or overwhelm us too much, we can begin to forget that we do, in the power of God, have a sound mind.
I cannot wait for Carol and Leaf to get up here and talk to you about having a sound mind. I love it so much! He does not give fear; He gives a sound mind. And I don’t know about you, but sometimes I just need to be reminded by God that I am not crazy, that I am not insane. Sometimes I feel like I have six different people in my brain talking to me all at the same time! Anybody know what I’m talking about? There’s just so much going on in your life. But what God does give you is that sense of strength and stability to carry you and me through whatever it is that He brings into our lives or allows into our lives. He does not give fear. If we believe that our God does not give a spirit of fear, but you find—or I find—in my life that there is a spirit of fear attached to something specific in your life or in your journey, an opportunity that you’re intimidated by, a relationship, an endeavor, a ministry, an interest of yours that just seems to cause you to feel a little bit paralyzed in insecurity or fear—even if you and I know what we know now based on the scriptures that God does not give fear, but you sense that there is a spirit of fear attached to something in your life and you know God didn’t give it, that means you know who did.
And if the enemy has placed a spirit of fear on something in your life, it must mean that he is trying his best to keep you away from something. If he’s trying to keep you away from it, that must mean there’s something in it that he does not want you to have. So as the children of Israel sat on the edge of the Red Sea, if they were to shrink back in fear and not pass through it, they would have been kept from the promised land on the other side of it. Listen, my friend, if the spirit of fear is attached to something in your life, would you know that that is likely the enemy’s way to keep you from passing through it? Because he knows that if you pass through it, on the other side of it is the destiny to which God has called you.
One of the main ways that he will keep you and me from achieving what it is and doing what it is that God has called us to do and who He has called us to be is that he will attach a spirit of fear to the very thing that he knows is the channel way to your destiny. He wants you and me to be so paralyzed, so crippled, so disarmed, so disinterested from the very thing that he knows is exactly what God wants to take you through so that He can bring you to a new place in Him. Do not be afraid!
One of the ways that I can even begin to discern the Lord’s leading in my life, I will tell you this: If there are two things in front of me, two options, and I’m trying to make a decision between A or B, and honestly, there’s one of them that I just don’t feel drawn to at all, and I’m leaning towards the other one, but as I pray through it, when I’m trying to discern God’s leading in my life, as I pray through it when I whittle down all the reasons why I don’t want a particular option, if when I get to the bottom root level of the reason why I don’t want to choose something, if there is any intimidation or insecurity or fear attached to the reason why I do not want to choose something, I automatically assume that if the enemy is working that hard to keep me away from that thing, there must be something in it that he does not want me to have.
I don’t know about you, but when I find out that the enemy is behind something, a holy indignation arises up on the inside of me! Anybody know what I’m talking about? Because everything God has for me, I want! Does anyone agree? Do not be afraid!
Now listen, it does not mean that you won’t feel fear. It made sense in this scenario that the children of Israel would be afraid. It made complete sense. They had just been in 400 years of captivity. They are just several days—really just hours, even—into the wilderness when they come up against a barrier that seems to board them in. It seems like they’re going to be kept from walking into true freedom. It makes sense that they would be afraid because not only is this body of water in front of them that they can’t see a cross, nor can they see a shoreline on the east or the west, but the problem is that now Pharaoh and his army is coming up on the rear. Scholars say that this army would have been so wide and so vast that they likely would have spanned around the east side and the west side of the Hebrew pilgrims. So not only are they blocked in front, and not only are they blocked by an army in the back, but really they are blocked on either side as well. In other words, they are completely surrounded. You know what it’s like to be surrounded. You know what it’s like to fix this problem right here, only to turn this way and realize there’s a problem right here. Then to take care of this one, only to realize there’s another one here and another one here.
Has anybody ever known what it felt like to be completely surrounded on all sides? The children of Israel know how it feels, and it makes sense that in their scenario they would be afraid, just like it makes sense that in your scenario with the difficulty you’re facing right now in your marriage, your health, your finances, your own heart, or in your parenting, that with difficulties like the ones we saw on these screens—with these four incredible testimonies to the grace and the power of God that stood before us singing the praises of God despite all that it is that He has allowed them to go through in their lives—it makes sense that in scenarios like that, my friend, you would be afraid. So the command is not that you will not feel fear. It makes sense in our frailty and our humanness that we will feel it. The question is whether or not you will choose to wallow in the fear that you feel. The question is whether or not you will make a decision to sit with it, to make friends with it, to pull out tea and crackers and have a party with it. The decision that you and I have to make is, will we guard our minds with the word of God? And in the power of God, will we do war against the enemy’s attempts to keep us from moving forward in God? Don’t let fear paralyze you, my friend!
Every time you feel the emotion of fear or insecurity or intimidation creeping up on you, don’t make friends with it. Take that as your cue to drop to your knees and offer that fear up to God. And then in the very next breath, command the promises of God’s word over your life and your circumstances. Y’all, we don’t live on a playground; we’re on a battlefield! We’ve got to go to war with this enemy that seeks to invade our minds and to disarm us from the power we need to move forward in Him.
The Baseball Machine Story
I have three boys. I told you all this a couple of years ago, but I’ll share it with you again: three boys that are rapidly getting bigger. I think that I have a picture of the boys they might have to share with you. They are some big giant boys! I will tell you that my oldest son, Jackson, is on the far left side over here, your right side. Jackson is getting ready to be 12 years old; he wears a size 11 men’s shoe. I’m not sure what the size would be over here; I don’t know if that’s the same size. But he wears size large! He’s very close to his father’s shoe size. Then little Jerry Jr. is really not that little; he’s 10 years old, he stands nearly about my height when I don’t have heels on. Just a really big guy! Then my little one is getting ready to be six years old. So I’ve got Jackson, Jerry Jr., and Jude. I named that little one Jude on purpose because that’s as close as I could get to Revelation, because it is finished; it’s the end of the line! So I’ve got Jackson, Jerry Jr., and I have Jude.
These boys, as you can see, are into athletics. They are into sports. That is one way that their size really does work to their advantage; they love whatever sport happens to be in season at the time. I remember when baseball kind of took off—American baseball kind of took off—with my older two boys. It was one Christmas, before Jude was even born. My oldest was five, and my second son was three years old. It was Christmas time, and you know what happens on Christmas Day: your kids don’t really understand what a holiday means, so they get up early in the morning and come into your room, and tell you how important and critical it is that you head to the Christmas tree immediately to open up those gifts!
Now, you need to know that at my house, we, up until recently, bought as many of their little Christmas gifts as we could from the dollar store. Do you have dollar stores here? OK, so we would go to the dollar store, and we’d buy them, you know, like a yo-yo, a little Rubik’s cube, little cheap things, because we decided to milk that as long as we could— as long as they were old enough and didn’t know what we were doing! So we would put just two or three things under the tree, and the reason why we would do that is because my children have grandparents; can somebody say hallelujah? Are there grandparents, any grandmothers in the room this morning? We want you to know we love you; just keep doing what you do! Because about noon on Christmas Day, after my boys have finished opening up a few little cheap trinkets under our little tree, we are going to Nanie and Poppy’s house—those are my parents—and that is where my boys get the loot!
On this particular Christmas, we bought them a couple of things from the dollar store, but my husband had kind of gone out to Toys R Us, the big toy store, and bought them this little baseball machine. It was a plastic machine that catapults plastic baseballs out at a certain frequency and a certain velocity. The kid stands there with a little plastic baseball helmet on and a plastic bat and just swings at these balls that are coming out. So they opened it up; they were so excited! Five years old, three years old, they could not wait to get outside early on Christmas morning! They had their father put together this little trinket so they could play this game. So there we are, wrapped in our robes, the sun is just coming up, it’s cold outside, it’s early in the morning, but there is that sweet little three-year-old. He’s got that plastic helmet on; he’s got that little plastic bat. He is swinging at every single ball that comes out of the shoot. Now, his older brother is a little bit more cautious, concerned, and calculated about things than his younger brother is. He was standing off to the side that Christmas morning, watching these balls coming out at this frequency and velocity, and he just wasn’t sure about it. He’s watching his little brother swing at it, but he’s like, «Mom, I don’t think I can do that. I’ll just let him do it.» I said, «No, buddy, you can do it.» I’m encouraging him. He says, «No, Mom, no I can’t. Those balls are too fast!» I said, «Buddy, yes, you can do it.» He says, «No, Mom, no I can’t.» I said, «Yes, you can—and you’re going to do it!» Because it’s early in the morning; it’s cold out here; and you brought us out here early in the morning! You’re going to do it! I wasn’t playing. So it’s finally his turn; he puts the helmet on, he grabs the bat, and he stands there, looking at the machine. I felt so bad for him because he was so intimidated and so insecure!
I wish I could have said—really, I did say that to him, but I don’t think his five-year-old brain could compute it. I wish I could have helped him realize that his father, who loves him so much, had gone behind that little machine. He had opened up a flap on the machine that revealed some gears. These gears could be manipulated so that the frequency and the velocity of the balls would be matched with the capability of the person that was standing at the plate. So my boy had no reason to fear because he had a father who loved him who had already set up the circumstances so that he was set up to win. The reason why you have no reason to be afraid, my friend, as God calls you to go here or do that or go through this particular thing in your life, it’s not because you’re so capable; it’s not because you’re so prepared. It is because you have a Daddy who loves you! He has already gone behind the scenes; He has already orchestrated and manipulated events and people and circumstances so that all He needs is a woman willing to say, «Yes, Lord!» and to stand there at the plate of His grace, glory, and calling on your life and to do what He’s called you to do.
If you and I will just do it, we will realize that we’ve been set up to hit a home run every single time! So if right now there is something crippling you—the enemy is working overtime to cause you to be afraid in your life—will you hear this message from the Holy Spirit today? Step up to the plate! Do not be afraid; your God has got your back.
Do not be afraid! The next message that Moses had for the children of Israel—and by the way, do you notice in this passage that it’s never really a debate whether or not they are going to cross over? Did you notice that? He said, «This victory is a victory that He will accomplish for you today.» There’s no question as to whether or not you will come through victoriously! My friend, I don’t know whether or not you’ve read the book, but in the end, we win! The victory has already been given to you! Your only goal, my only goal as we go through that thing in our lives is just to claim and lay hold of what has already been granted to you! You are not fighting for victory; you’re fighting from a place of victory! Your stance is already victorious! It changes the way you look at the challenge when you know the victory is already yours.
Be Still
So He says to them, «Be Fearless.» And the second thing He says to them is, «Be Still.» Some translations read «Stand by;» others say «Stand firm;» still others say «Stand still.» Notice the two parts of this command: the standing part and the stillness part, neither of which are particularly simple for me. I have a problem with both of these commands. I have a problem with them because if I had been there on the edge of the Red Sea and I’m watching the chariots, the bows and arrows, and the soldiers that are approaching from behind and all around the sides, when I am cornered like that in a scenario where I feel like there will never be any way of escape in this particular scenario that I’m in, it just does not make sense to me that Moses would look at me as an Israelite in that particular predicament and say, «Here’s what you’re going to do. I want you to just stand still.»
Moses, you mean you do see this water right here? You don’t want me to get this wood and start carving out a raft and getting it together so that we’ll have something to sail on to get over this body of water? Moses, you do see that we’ve got some swords here? You don’t want me to pick up this sword and get ready to fight? Moses, you do understand that I’ve got a bow and arrow here? You don’t want me to pick up this bow and arrow and get ready to shoot it into the crowd? Moses, you mean you don’t want me to take my earrings off and get some Vaseline on my knuckles and get ready to go?! No! Moses says to them, «I do not want you to lean to your own understanding as to what you would think would be the best solution in this particular problem. What I want you to do is to plant your feet firmly, to stand, and I want you to be still in faith and confidence and trust that the God that we serve, the same God that delivered us out of Egypt, is the same God who will carry us through the Red Sea!»
He says, «Stand still!» Sounds like a very passive command in the midst of very active circumstances! But I want you to think about this for just one second. When I come home from a long day of work, when you do as well, or running errands or whatever, when I walk into the house after a long day, the last thing I want to do is stand. What do I do? I take my shoes off, and then what do we do? We sit! We find the most comfortable chair that we can, and we collapse into it or lay flat on our bed. And the reason is because all this standing seems like a passive action; actually, there’s nothing passive about it! Sitting is passive; laying is passive because then we’re allowing something else to carry our weight. But when you stand, it requires a decision of your brain that transfers down to the muscles and the joints in your body. It requires a resolve of your mind, your actions, your muscles, your frame to keep itself upright when you’d rather just relax into something else to carry your weight! Standing is not passive at all—it requires a decision, a choice, an action on your part—a resolution on your part to plant your feet on something and not be moved!
You need to know that our culture, the culture in which we live globally, wants us to relax our standards, wants us to no longer plant our feet firmly on the word of God, doesn’t want us to make a resolution that we will not be moved to the left or the right, that when we’re going through something that seeks to challenge everything that we thought we knew to be true about our God and about His commands, we will not allow our feet to be moved away from the firm belief and confidence that we have in the promises of our great God! It takes resolution in the culture in which we live, y’all, to plant your feet and stand firm! High school student, you’ve got to stand firm! University student, you’ve got to stand firm! Wife, mother, single woman—in order to do and be who it is that God has called you to be, you and I are going to have to plant our feet solidly on the truths of God’s word and believe that everything He said is true and applies to our lives. That it’s not just a book written with historical facts that’s good for history; it is a book that has been inspired by the Holy Spirit of God and that applies to us today.
Plant your feet on it, my friend, and stand! Stand firm! Ephesians 6 puts it this way: «Having done everything to stand, stand firm therefore.» In other words, you just keep on standing! I know that it might be a little bit tiring, a little bit exhausting. You might feel pushed to the left or the right; you might even want to take a step forward or backward or go out in your own power or strength, come up with your own solution for this incident or this issue. Just plant your feet, trust God, and stand firm! He really does have your back, and if God is for you, who can be against you?
The Airport Story
There was a young woman that interned with us at our ministry just for the summer. She was with us for about three months. She was from a smaller town in the States called Baton Rouge, Louisiana. She moved to Dallas-Fort Worth, which is a much larger metropolitan area than Baton Rouge. She moved there for just the summer so that she could intern with us. Now, Katie hadn’t done a lot of traveling, but when she did travel, her main airport was the Baton Rouge airport. It’s a smaller town; it’s just kind of a smaller airport. Well, the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport is a monster airport!
So the very first time she traveled with us out of Dallas-Fort Worth airport, she was just kind of like, «What is going on?» Because it’s huge! When you go out of Dallas-Fort Worth airport in order to catch your flight, the very first thing you have to even know is which terminal you need to go to to even find your plane! We have five different terminals—Terminal A, Terminal B, Terminal C, D, or E! So you have to know which terminal you are going to first, and then you have to know not only which terminal you’re going to but which gate you’re going to go to when you get to that terminal. Most of the terminals have up to 36 gates—between 30 and 36 gates. Well, that would be enough, except that some of those gates have a part A and a part B. So you might be going to Terminal E, Gate 32A!
On this particular time, this is the first time we were all traveling together. Most of the time, my entire family travels with me; we all travel together—all five of us! And Katie was traveling with us. I believe we were going to Los Angeles from Dallas-Fort Worth. So we got to Terminal D, we pulled our car up to Terminal D—we knew that that was where our flight was going to be leaving from—and we got all our bags out of the car, got ourselves out of the car, we walked into the airport, checked our bags, and then we got in line for security. My family and I happened to be shuffled to one line; Katie was in another line. But we were both going through—all of us were going through the line at security.
So we commenced to all basically take off all of our clothes so that we could get through security and board this plane. My line went so much faster than Katie’s. I don’t know what the holdup was, but there just was one holdup after another, and she couldn’t get through. So all five of us had gotten through security and were on the other side of security, and Katie was still back there waiting to come through. So we just kind of waited a second, waved at her, and she lifted her shoulders, unsure of what was going on. My husband sent her a text and said, «We will meet you at Gate 22A.»
Now, when you come through security, that particular gate was literally right to the left! We could see the gate from where we were standing. She checked her message; we saw that she got the message. She waved back to us—thumbs up! «I will meet you at Gate 22A.» So we went, and we sat down at the gate. After a few moments, they started boarding for the flight, and so I decided to go ahead and get the kids on, get their bags in the overhead compartment, get them all buckled in and ready to go. We were sitting there on the plane; we were still waiting for Katie. Now we’re getting a little bit nervous because Katie is still not there, and really half of the plane is already full. So people keep lining onto the plane, we keep looking for Katie; we do not see her. We finally hear the airline calling her name over the loudspeaker! Now you know you’re late when they start calling your name over the loudspeaker.
So they’re calling her name over the loudspeaker, and we’re really nervous now because everybody’s on the plane. They’re about to close the door of the Jet Bridge, and she still has not gotten on the flight. We’ve tried to call, she hasn’t answered; we’ve texted, she has not responded. We don’t know what is going on. And literally moments before they’re about to close the door of the airplane, Katie comes racing down the little small narrow aisle of the plane. She races down, she is sweating bullets, her hair is plastered to the side of her face, she races down the aisle, plops into her chair, takes a deep breath, wipes her face, and buckles up. She looks up just in time to find all five of us looking at her like this.
We said, «Katie, what in the world happened? Security was just right there, and our gate was just right here! What in the world happened?» She said, «Well, I saw on my text that Jerry sent me that it said Gate 22A, but I just assumed that he meant A22! So I got on the airport train that takes you to all the different terminals in the entire airport; I went from D all the way over to A on the other side of the airport, went down to Gate 22. Obviously, I realized that was the wrong gate, so I had to get back on the train go all the way around back to here so that I could hopefully make the flight!»
She was like, «I didn’t even think that I was going to make it!» My husband looked back at her like this, and then he said something to her that I will never forget. He said, «Oh, Katie, if you would have just believed that exactly what I wrote is exactly what I meant, you could have saved yourself so much time and so much energy, so much sweat, and so much frustration! If you would have just believed that exactly what I wrote is exactly what I meant…» I wonder how much sweat and how many sleepless nights and how much frustration and how much worry and concern and anxiety would have been saved for us, the daughters of God, if we would just believe that our Father wrote exactly what He wanted us to plant our feet and stand on!
Do not lean to your own understanding. In all your ways, acknowledge Him. He will make straight your path, even when it does not make sense! Even when it doesn’t seem rational that this would be the way to come to any sort of resolution in that particular problem that you’re facing. «Lord, you don’t want me to do this; this just seems like a better option to me!» «Lord, no! No! Plant your feet on what I said and stand still!» Most of the time, when we have a friend who is having a problem or she’s in trouble, we don’t say to her to «Stand still.» We normally say, «Girl, don’t just stand there! Do something!» Moses says the opposite: «Girl, don’t just do something! Stand there! Trust God.»
Be Watchful
So Moses says, «You want to get through this thing? You be Fearless!» And then He says, «You be still.» And thirdly, He says, «Be watchful!» I love this one so much! He puts it this way. He told the children of Israel, «See the salvation of the Lord!» Now remember, they have no idea at this point that the Lord is going to cause—Yahweh is going to cause—the walls of the Red Sea to divide like two walls on either side! They have no clue what miracle is even going to be performed—if a miracle is going to be performed! They have no clue at all! So they are still looking at the problem as it is currently. With the Red Sea rushing in front of them, with complete doubt in their mind as to how they’ll ever be able to traverse this issue that they are facing, Moses says to them, «See it!» He says, «See the salvation of the Lord before the miracle!»
Now, he’s not talking about when the miracle comes; he’s saying, «Before you have any clue of how God is going to take care of this scenario, I want you to open up your eyes and see what’s happening right now!» Now, this is a problem for me, I’ve got to tell you, because when I have a problem in my life, the last thing I want to do is look at it! I want to close my eyes and sleep through it. I want God to hurry up and let it pass. I want to rush through that thing and miss as much of it as I possibly can so that I can just move on to the good stuff! Moses says, «Don’t wait on the good stuff! This is the good stuff!» He says, «While you’re looking at your problem, your marriage is still a disaster, your child is still struggling with that issue, your health still hasn’t been turned around, your finances are still on the edge—while you’re still looking at the issue, Moses says, open up your eyes and see what God is already up to!»
He says, «There are a bunch of little miracles that if you’re just waiting on the big miracle, you’re going to miss all the other things that God is already doing and accomplishing on your behalf!» Moses is basically saying, «I don’t want you to miss what it looks like. I want you to always recall what it looked like when I stood on the edge of this water and I held out this rod over the body of water before we even knew what was going to occur. I want you to remember forever what it looked like—the expression on the faces of your toddlers and your elderly as they watched the Red Sea divide! I want you to remember what it felt like to hold the hands of your sweet little grandma that you helped get across that body of water. I want you to remember the details of what it felt like when that east wind started to blow—slowly at first across your cheeks, but then begins to grow and grow in intensity so much so that you’ve got to hold your cloak around you or the wind will take it away when that Red Sea begins to divide! I want you to never forget what it looked like when your sandal feet had absolutely no mud on the bottom of them because we’re walking across on dry ground.»
He says, «Don’t just wait to see the big miracle! There are a bunch of little miracles that God is already doing on your behalf! Keep your eyes open and see the salvation of the Lord!» You know what I’ve begun to do? I’ll tell you this quickly: I’ve got this little file on my computer called «He Speaks to Me.» It’s a little Microsoft Word document, and in it, I have a record of little things that I have seen God do when I have refused the tendency that I have to want to close my eyes and sleep through the difficulty so that I can move on. When I have kept my eyelids open, forced them open spiritually to see what God is doing, I’m surprised! Because there He is! I’m surprised because His footprints just showed up over there! There’s His handiwork! That right there wasn’t a coincidence; that was God! I write that down! And as you write down what you’re seeing God doing—even while you’re waiting—you know what that does, y’all? It builds a track record with you and God! It means the next time you face a Red Sea, it won’t be nearly as intimidating to you as the last one was because you remember—you can read a file of all that God has already done! It builds your holy confidence, your remembrance of the power and the strength of God!
Be Quiet
So, be Fearless, be Still, be Watchful, and finally, shh, be Quiet! Do not allow your mouth to open in complaint. Make a choice that if you don’t have anything good to say…did you have that mom? My mom used to say to me, «If you don’t have anything good to say, Priscilla, just don’t!» Anybody?
I was talking with Lisa Bevere a couple of years ago. There was something happening in my life that was a challenge for me, and I was discouraged. I was a little bit afraid, kind of combating that, and I knew Lisa well—you know Lisa; she’s not messing around! So I knew that she would pray with me through it, and so I wanted to share details with her. And as I’m just telling her what was going on in this particular part of our ministry and talking about it with her, mid-story she said to me, «I’m sorry, Priscilla. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait! I’m sorry to interrupt you, but just hold on now! I need you to back up and start that story over from the beginning. Try again! Start again!»
I said, «What?» She said, «Yeah, I don’t really like your word choice. I don’t like the words you’re using to describe this issue. So, if you don’t mind, I need you to go back to the beginning and start over, and I need you to think wisely before you choose the words that you speak about.» She said, «Priscilla, what you don’t understand is that the enemy is trying to form a weapon against you, and the equipment and the tools that he needs to actually put that weapon together, you give him with every single negative word that comes out of your mouth! Before the word comes out of your mouth, the enemy doesn’t have the tools he needs to build that weapon against you! But we hand them over every single time we speak cursing instead of blessing out of our mouths!»
She said, «On the flip side, the scripture says that the Lord watches over His word to perform it. So you’ve got to make a decision: Do you want to give the enemy something to work with, or do you want to give the Lord something to work with?» So the children of Israel, a steadfast, watchful, silent bunch of Hebrews, saw the miracle of a lifetime, right? The Red Sea divided and they went through it! Do you know that Hollywood created a movie years ago called «The Ten Commandments,» and it took Hollywood 18 months to figure out how to simulate what God did in a split second? Wow! And the same God that divided their Red Sea and took them through it is the same God who will divide yours and take you through it, if only you and I will be Fearless, be Still, be Watchful, and shh, be Silent.