The Lord will Fight your Battles, but Will You Let Him?

“Yet you would not go up, but rebelled against the command of the Lord your God.  And you murmured in your tents and said, ‘Because the Lord hated us he has brought us out of the land of Egypt, to give us into the hand of the Amorites, to destroy us.  Where are we going up? Our brothers have made our hearts melt, saying, “The people are greater and taller than we. The cities are great and fortified up to heaven. And besides, we have seen the sons of the Anakim there.”’  Then I said to you, ‘Do not be in dread or afraid of them.  The Lord your God who goes before you will himself fight for you, just as he did for you in Egypt before your eyes” Deuteronomy 1: 26-30.

My Job, My Idol

My first nursing job in a nursing home had become an idol to me. I had been more concerned about, and focused on doing a good job, and not making a mistake than with overcoming my sin of anxiety. The anxiety that had become overwhelming and debilitating.

I had not even made it a subject of earnest and consistent prayer. And I had been battling it for at least six months. And I was someone who made prayer a priority of each day.

Ironically, for the first few months, the anxiety wasn’t that bad. And since I only worked two days a week at first, I didn’t encounter it much in the grand scheme of things.

And as it began to increase, I started to think it was related to premenopausal hormones and therefore, there wasn’t much I could do about it.

Also, I began to think it was too much for me, and therefore there was nothing I could do about it when I was overwhelmed at work. Afterall, I reasoned, I had to focus on the task at hand. So, I just allowed myself to be defeated by it.

I Didn’t Believe the Lord would Fight for Me

In essence, I said the same thing the Israelites did in verse 28: “The people are greater and taller than we. The cities are great and fortified up to heaven. And besides, we have seen the sons of the Anakim [giants] there”.

To read this passage for context, click here. It’s the account of how the Lord took His people out of Egypt and wanted to give them a glorious land of their own. A land flowing with milk and honey.

They would have to fight for it. But He would assure the victory. But they didn’t believe that.

I had decided my enemy was too much for me too. It was more than I can handle. I couldn’t overcome it. Here me when I say it’s not that I wouldn’t overcome it, it’s that I couldn’t.

But to the Lord, there isn’t much difference. Because He supplies all the strength we need to overcome our spiritual enemies (weaknesses).

This is the same attitude I had toward my out-of-control temper for a long time. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to be delivered. It was that I couldn’t. And I wasn’t looking to the Lord for help.

Israel Wanted to Defeat Her Enemies

It wasn’t that the Israelites didn’t want to overcome their enemies. Of course they did. They knew they had to if they ever wanted to inherit the promise land. So, it wasn’t lack of desire that kept them from their inheritance. It was unbelief.

It was that they failed to understand that while it was true that their enemies really were too much for them, they weren’t too much for God.

In the same way, if I wanted to inherit my promise land of enjoying my chosen profession and earn a living by it, I had to overcome my debilitating anxiety. Even though it was overwhelming and felt impossible.

The Lord Will Fight for You

I had to learn to lean on the Lord and allow Him to teach me how to deal with it and ultimately vanquish it. To read how the Lord helped me with this, click here.

The idea that our sin is too much for us can be deceptive. We are tempted to think the Lord understands and that He doesn’t expect us to overcome it. Not so!

Remember that the Israelites wanted more than anything to overcome their enemies so they could inherit their promise land. But their enemies were too much for them. And God didn’t understand. He did expect them to overcome them in His strength.

To read another post related to The Lord Will Fight your Battles, but Will You Let Him? see Afflictions and Usefulness: The Link.