The Lord Will Fight for You, You Need Only to Be Still.

It's seven thirty, and Theo and I have just finished reading our stories.

Which, in his mind, is the signal that it's time to organize his room.

Then he starts remembering everything else he needs to do.

He's forgotten Doggy. He needs another wee. He needs a drink. There's some small plastic thing he's been obsessed with all day, and it has to be found before anyone in this house is allowed to sleep.

We find it. Back upstairs and into bed.

It's now 8 pm, and the fidgeting starts. Tossing. Turning. One leg out, one leg back in. One more cuddle. One more kiss.

He's four, and there's just too much going on inside him for his body to be quiet. (I'm told it's testosterone. Whatever it is, it keeps him up.)

Some nights he's still awake gone nine, and one of us ends up sitting on the edge of his bed, resting a hand on his leg every time he moves, just to help him settle.

Being still is the hardest thing we ask of him all day.

I'm no better. I just do it in the daytime.

When there's a problem, or something that isn't right, I have to be doing something about it.

I strategize. I try one thing. When that doesn't work, I try another. When that doesn't work, I'm lying awake at eleven working out a third.

Doing something feels like progress. Sitting still with it feels like giving up.

So when I come across what Moses says in Exodus 14, I understand why it must have sounded impossible to the people who first heard it.

"The Lord will fight for you, and you shall be still."

Be still. Not afterwards, once the threat has passed. Right now, in the middle of it.

It sounds like the most passive instruction in the Bible, and it's one of the hardest.

But God is teaching me that stillness isn't giving up. It's the moment I accept that the outcome was never in my hands to begin with.

And notice he doesn't tell them to calm down.

He tells them who is fighting.

So today, whatever you've been fighting, and however many times you've tried to fix it this week, you can stop.

Not because it stopped mattering, but because it was never yours to win.

He isn't waiting for you to work it out. He isn't disappointed that you ran out of ideas at eleven o'clock last night.

He's already in it. Already fighting. Already ahead of you.

So let your hands go loose.

The Lord will fight for you. You need only to be still.