Holding On

Holding On

The LORD shall fight for you, and ye shall hold your peace.

Exodus 14 v 14


Quietness and confidence is the very strength of the believer. Conflicts may rage around us. But we will be held in the “eye not of the storm but of peace and stillness.” We need not fear the odds against us. There may be powerful giants arrayed against us but the Lord undertakes to fight on our behalf. The battle is His. The victory is ours. With the Lord on our side, one man can put to flight a 1000. He is our force multiplier. The banner over us is not just of love but of victory on account of His love. He is Jehovah El Shaddai, God Almighty and therefore He is also Jehovah Nissi, God of Victory. The Lord was with the Israelites and so their opponents could not succeed against them nor could they resist or overcome them. The Lord is not just with us but He is in us and that makes us a formidable force to contend with. His mere presence in us will guarantee victory. He will be an enemy to our enemies and oppose those who oppose us.


The Lord fought against the mighty Egyptians. He assured the Israelites fleeing from centuries of bondage- “ You shall see them no more.” He gave them a decisive victory. For victory to be established, we need to hold our peace. It implies that we should not rely on our own strategies but submit our concerns and plans to the Lord. We need to hold on to the assurance of victory the Lord has given us. We need to hold on to the peace of the Lord beyond human circumstances. We should deny every anxious thought and hold on to the Word of God as our spiritual weapon of defence and offence. We should hold on to the hope we have in Christ who overcame sin and death. He is the all-conquering hero for no one else in history accomplished what He did. We should hold on to our faith in the presence, the protection and the promises of the Lord. Holding on is the key to spiritual victory in all our battles.

Like Hezekiah, the King of Israel who when faced with the mighty army of the Assyrian King Sennacherib encouraged his people to look to the Lord alone for help. He told them “ with them is only the arm of the flesh but with us is the Lord. Greater is they that are with us than they that are with them.” The Lord sent one angel who in one night killed 185,000 of Sennacherib’s troops. Later on, Sennacherib himself was assassinated by his own two sons or his own flesh and blood. Similarly, we too need to spread out our petitions before the Lord in all the challenges we face in life. Hezekiah relied not on weapons of metal or on the strength of his army. He was prudent enough to stop the springs around Jerusalem. He fortified and built up the walls of Jerusalem. Relying on the Lord does not mean taking leave of our senses or abandoning prudence or reason but to do all that lies with us and then depend on the arm of the Lord to deliver us.

Prateep V Philip