Miracles

[1]

Exodus 14:14 Good News Translation

¹⁴ The Lord will fight for you, and all you have to do is keep still.”

 

The year 2020 came in with us feeling confident. We were now seeing with 20/20 vision. Then COVID struck. The year went to pot. We locked down. We feared that this unseen foe would strike us at any minute. A feeling of total helplessness gripped us. Many denied that there was anything amiss. Like the proverbial ostrich, they buried their heads in the sand. When someone actually got the disease, they were locked away in cruel isolation in a hospital, subjected to torture alone, without family or pastor to comfort and strengthen them. We marked time, waiting for a miracle. Large numbers took Moses’s instruction to heart[2]: “The Lord will fight for you, and all you have to do is keep still.”

Then by 2021, several vaccines had been invented. Many recognized that the long hoped for miracle had arrived. The bronze snake had been erected, and all people had to do was to look at the snake and they would be healed.[3]  In Moses’s day, of course, there were some who said, “That would be idolatry to look at a bronze snake for salvation! I’m not going to do it.” And some of them died. Similarly, in the last year, many people have maintained that, as Israel did before the Red Sea, all we have to do is keep still and the Lord will fight for us.

But we must read the rest of the Red Sea story. The next verse reads: “The Lord said to Moses, “Why are you crying out for help? Tell the people to move forward.” Had the people refused and stayed on the west bank of the Red Sea, they would indeed have been slaughtered. A miracle took place, but they had to respond by moving ahead. Trusting God does not always involve doing nothing. He asks us to wait for Him to move, but then we are to follow.

Thank you Lord for providing a remedy for this nasty disease, and also for the even nastier results of sin!

 

 

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[1] https://the-fog-blog.com/2016/08/21/the-serpent-and-the-cross/

[2] ¹³ Moses answered, “Don't be afraid! Stand your ground, and you will see what the Lord will do to save you today; you will never see these Egyptians again. ¹⁴ The Lord will fight for you, and all you have to do is keep still.” ¹⁵ The Lord said to Moses, “Why are you crying out for help? Tell the people to move forward. Exodus 14: 13-15

 [3] Numbers 21:9 “So Moses made a bronze snake and put it on a pole. Anyone who had been bitten would look at the bronze snake and be healed.”