Keep Your Mouth Shut

May 1, 2024

From Jeff Twomley

Since my attempts to read the Bible completely through always seem to stall out in the not-so-relevant sections of the Old Testament, I have been listening on my Bible app to a couple of chapters each morning as I drive to work. And, I have been listening to The Message paraphrase to help with “listenability” (sorry, David Kim!).

Listening to Exodus was a little more interesting, with the Israelites escaping the Egyptians and running towards the Red Sea. In chapter 14, as they saw the Egyptians closing in on them, they cried and wailed to Moses about their predicament. “What have you done to us, taking us out of Egypt? Back in Egypt, didn’t we tell you this would happen?”

And then in verse 14, I discovered why listening to The Message paraphrase was exactly what I needed! Moses told the Israelites, “God will fight the battle for you. And you? You keep your mouths shut!” Ha! Well said!

And then I began to think of how many times in my own life things would have gone so much better if I had only followed that advice. I thought of all the times I had whined to God about circumstances and situations…and told Him my plan for Him to fix things. How much better (and less stressful) would life have been if I had only shut my mouth and waited for God to fight my battle?

I used to think that faith and the ability to “wait on the Lord” would get easier as I grew older. I am not so sure of that anymore. It is a life-long struggle to have the ability to release everything into God’s care and shut up about it! May God give us the strength and courage to look to Him to fight our battles and then, to keep our mouths shut!