Just Eat Your Sandwich

 When I was in college, I used to do my best to memorize a Bible verse every week and then apply it to my life. One of the verses I have never forgotten is Exodus 14:14, which says,

“The Lord will fight for you; you need only to hold your peace.”

When you are struggling through premed classes at a very prestigious and predominantly white institution as a young Black woman, you really need God to fight those battles for you.

But the part of that verse that always made me pause was the second half: hold your peace.

What does that even mean?

We all know that peace is not something tangible or easy to access. Yet God tells us to hold it. I think that’s exactly why it’s included in the Bible. God knew this would be something many of us would struggle with, because it’s not something we can physically hold to ground us. And yet, somehow, if we do hold it, it grounds us anyway.

Imagine you are on the front line of a very intense battle. I’m talking about cannons going off—spears, bullets—literally everything. It’s messy. The commander of your army calls you to be on the front line. Meanwhile, you have no experience and would much rather be in the back behind a big boulder. But that same commander who made you come to the front line hands you a sandwich and tells you to just sit there.

You blink your eyes rapidly and scratch your head. He repeats himself, “Just sit there and eat that sandwich while I fight this battle for you.” Still dumbfounded, you say, “I don’t really think that’s a good use of my skill set—not that I have any to fight a battle of this intensity—nor do I think it’s safe for me to do that.”

And he just looks at you straight in the face and says, “Just eat your sandwich.”

And so you do. You sit at the front line of this battle, crisscross applesauce style, eating your sandwich without a care in the world—as you were commanded—as weapons of all kinds whip and fly past you. Yet none of them harm you.

In that moment, the sandwich becomes the only thing in your hands—the one thing keeping you focused while the commander handles the battle. That’s what it looks like to hold your peace.

I remember seeing a video on Instagram once where a girl kept saying that life may throw us some curveballs, but no matter what, with God we win. That idea kept coming back to me last month during Nathaniel Bassey’s Hallelujah Challenge. There was a song he sang every single day, and I completely fell in love with it:

“You surround me with many victories,
Jehovah Nissi you’re my banner,
You go before me
You fight my battles
Jehovah Nissi Jehovah Nissi.”

Those lyrics stuck with me because they describe exactly what Exodus 14:14 is talking about.

Do you know what it means to be surrounded with victories? Because normally, on a battlefield, you would expect to be surrounded by enemies, arrows, and snares. But with God going before us, what surrounds us instead is victory.

Over time, I have come to learn quite a few names of God, but Jehovah Nissi was one that I wasn’t very familiar with. Jehovah Nissi translates to “The Lord is my Banner.” Moses first used this phrase after God gave the Israelites victory over their enemies (Exodus 17:15). The name reminds us that God is our source of protection, victory, and guidance.

I don’t know about you, but if I ever have to go into a battle, I’m going with someone whose winning record is perfect. And that’s exactly who God is. Which means that while the battle may still be raging around us, our job remains the same: hold our peace… and eat our sandwich.

It may seem like a strange concept to “hold your peace,” especially when everything around you feels chaotic. But when you know that God is in your corner fighting for you, peace is the only thing left to hold onto. He removes the fear, the doubt, and the feeling that you are incapable of winning. And when He strips all of that away, you begin to feel lighter and freer.

So I want to encourage you to sit on the front line of your battle and just eat your sandwich. Because God has already gone before you and won.


Love always,

God's Most Talkative Child

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