I think most of us have heard the saying "it's either fight or flight", but I never really understood what it meant. No, I know it means that when faced with a harmful, maybe even deadly situation, hormones kick in and a person or animal either fights to survive or fleas and hopes to survive by getting away. I mean I never understood it until I lived it.
Years ago, I flew! I knocked on a door, heard an angry voice on the other side, handed over the plate of cookies when the door open and then flew. I don't remember deciding to run away. One moment I was trembling as I stood at the open door and the next I was opening my car door. I don't remember anything in between. I've tried but I can't. Do I look back and wish I had stood my ground? There were times I did, but now, more than 10 years later I am so glad I didn't. Not that I'm proud of fleeing, but ultimately it was a situation I did not need to be in.
The other day I felt my emotions start to veer in an unhealthy direction. My mind started into overdrive and a voice told me, "run! Hide deep within yourself! Lock yourself away so you don't have to feel those bad feelings!" And that was when I realized I had flown many a time before. In the past, I hide. When it got too scary to feel strong emotions I hid them deep down. I didn't stand up and fight back. I flew. For years, I lived behind the wall. The wall that hid the real me away from almost everyone. There was a false sense of safety behind that wall. If I dared peek out from behind it and found myself in an emotionally scary situation I dove right back behind it, dusted myself off, and claimed I was safe. But the truth was I wasn't safe at all. I was living in a perpetual state of fear. God broke that wall down. But the voice tried to convince me to built the bricks back up again. I only listened to the voice for a moment before I declared, "no!"
That was a much bigger fight moment than if I had put up my fists and punched someone who had threatened me. Let's face it, I can't really punch anyway. I have two brothers and they made it clear when I was younger that I couldn't really punch. But let's just say I could. My standing up to that voice and saying, "no!" was a wallop!
I've come to learn that the "simple" act of standing is fighting. Exodus 14:13-14 has taught me a whole new way to look at fight or flight.
"And Moses said to the people, 'fear not, stand firm, and see the salvation of the Lord, which He will work for you today. For the Egyptians you see today, you shall never see again. The Lord will fight for you, and all you have to do is be silent.'"
This group of recently freed slaves were weak from their years of bondage. They weren't soldiers. They were men, women, and children who stood with their backs against an impassible sea and looking into the billowing dust caused by the Egyptian chariots that came to crush them. I've read that they were surrounded, not by the Egyptians and sea alone, but by a range of rocks that they couldn't climb and possibly a garrison belonging to this same army which came thundering toward them. They really had no way to flee to safety. Any direction they ran in would result in their deaths. God told them not to fear. Fear would make them flee into certain death. So they had to fight and God told them to do so by standing firm. Not get out any weapons they may have had among them. Not dig in. Not get into military formation. Just stand, stand firm in the face of destruction. And then He told to be quiet. I'm sure every woman there wanted to scream out in terror. I'm sure children wanted to cry hysterically. I'm sure even the men wanted to fall to their knees and cry in despair, but God told all of them to be silent. And He made it sound easy, "all you have to do is be silent." Oh, is that all God? Just don't be afraid of this overwhelming enemy; stand before them like we won't get plowed into the ground by their chariot wheels; and don't make a sound!
Yes. That is all.
See, He fights for us. We still have the choice, fight or flight, but one we do all on our own. If we flee, we run right into our own destruction. We run behind walls that hid us in from the bad and also keep us from anything good. We try to climb mountains we were never meant to and we fall time and time again, until we are too broken to even make another attempt. Or we fight. Not with our fists. Not by outshouting our enemy. Not with weapons. Not with war horses or chariots. We fight when we let Him do the battling. The battle belongs to the Lord and all we need to do is fear not, stand firm, and be quiet.
