Some Battles You Don’t Need to Fight
“You will not have to fight this battle. Take up your positions; stand firm and see the deliverance the Lord will give you.”
— 2 Chronicles 20:17 (NIV)
Meet Lucy. Lucy had always been the strong one in her family. The peacemaker. The fixer. The confident. But in her late 30s, she found herself between a failing marriage, caring for her aging parents, and the recent loss of a job she had held for over ten years. Lucy was exhausted, but more than just physically. She was deeply tired. She was soul tired. In a final act of desperation, Lucy joined a 21-day fast at her church. At first, she fasted for solutions asking, “God, please restore my marriage. God, open a job opportunity. God, please heal my family.” Her diary pages were filled with to-do lists, not for her personally, but for God.
But midway through the fast, Lucy came across 2 Chronicles 20:17. It didn’t immediately comfort her, it actually confused her. “You will not have to fight?” But wasn’t fighting all she’d ever known and all she’d ever done? So that night, Lucy prayed a different kind of prayer. “Lord, I don’t even know what surrender looks like. But I’m here. And I’m listening.”
What followed was not a miraculous job offer or instant reconciliation with her husband. It was deeper, much deeper than that. She began sleeping through the night for the first time in months. She stopped feeling the urge to explain herself in every argument. She cried for the first time in years, during worship. And slowly, and quietly, God was fighting a battle in her, not just around her.
By the end of the 21 day fast, nothing on her prayer list had been “answered” the way she had imagined. But Lucy wasn’t the same woman. The battles were still there—but the burden of fighting them alone had been lifted. Peace had come, not because the storm had stopped, but because she had learned to be still in it. Some of the greatest victories in life come not by striving, but by surrender.
When King Jehoshaphat received word that a vast army was coming against Judah, panic could have ruled. But instead of strategizing, he called a fast. The people of God turned their eyes to Him, not to the threat, not to their limited resources, but to the One who never fails. And then came the divine instruction, “You will not have to fight this battle....Stand firm and see what I will do.”
Fasting, at its core, has this same posture. We stop trying to do, and we start learning to trust. We often fast to move the hand of God, but sometimes, God uses fasting to move our hearts. Some battles God never intended you to fight. The battle for control, the battle to prove your worth, the battle to fix what only God can heal. Fasting teaches us to take our position, not on the front lines, but on our knees. In that posture, God goes before us. And where we once felt surrounded by enemies, we now see we’re surrounded by grace. Surrender is not weakness but a spiritual strategy.
There are battles meant for you to fight, and there are others that are won by simply standing still in God's presence. In this time of fasting, yield your heart to see and know the difference.
Let God do what only He can do. This battle is not yours.
God Bless You