In Exodus we Moses fight an Egyptian to the death. Are we not repeating these survival instincts in our daily lives too?
As a valiant servant of God, we often view Moses as a standup human. He was scared and insecure, taking those fears to God, then braving God’s call for him anyways. How honorable.
One thing we don’t see Moses as was a stone cold murderer. Yet he was. He literally fought an Egyptian to death, then buried the body in the sand. Did you catch that in Exodus?
How could this quiet, shy, timid man have such a dark side?
What was it that led him to turn on his fellow Egyptian, to protect the Hebrew he only now saw as his own?
Moses grew up wealthy, spoiled, privileged and safe. He was an Egyptian for all he knew, living among the ruling class with Pharaoh and his family. Danger was taken care of by his staff. While he surely dealt with emotional struggles, he probably never saw physical pain full on.
Until the day he entered into the world of the Hebrews.
When Moses finds out he’s Hebrew, his world comes crashing down around him. He’s an outsider in his own Egyptian family, yet he’s not a Hebrew slave either. He knows nothing about what it’s like to be a Hebrew.
In his identity crisis, we see him seeking answers; seeking himself.
He goes down into the streets of the Hebrews and, for the first time in his life, witnesses the atrocities.
They’re being beaten horrifically to construct Pharaoh’s dream land.
His heart shatters into a million little pieces.
These are his people, his bloodline, his mother and father. He doesn’t know who they are, yet for the first time in his life, he relates to them.
This empathy opens his heart to seeing them as one of his own, not just the help. Thus ensues the shift within him to suddenly stand-up for and protect them.
Papa bear emerges.
But instead of doing this reasonably by talking with the Egyptian or Pharaoh, he snaps. Moses all out beats the Egyptian to death, then buries him in the sand to cover it up.
It probably happened in a matter of seconds. A perfectly kind man suddenly a stone cold killer, covering up his crime.
What on earth has satan done?
Moses was a human no different than us.
He had a brain and nervous system designed with survival instincts to protect him and those around him. When his brain deemed that things weren’t ok, he flipped into survival mode.
Fight or Flight is designed to free us from the danger, including fighting to the death.
Moses’s compassion and empathy for his Hebrew family resulted in pain when he saw what they were suffering from. This pain was unbearable for him, causing his brain to shift from “this is hard” to “this is too much”.
The breaker flips, he’s in survival mode and now his brain is going to fight or run to save lives.
We don’t know the whole story. Maybe punching the Egyptian would have stopped the abuse. Maybe it wouldn’t have. What we do know is that Moses goes all in. He beats him until he’s dead.
His brain hijacked his body and he had no clue what he was doing. He literally fought to the death to end the abuse.
Even though he wasn’t the one being abused.
We do this too.
We feel the excruciating pain of others hurting us, or our loved ones. Then we fight like heck to stop it. We’ll do anything to protect our own, even when it means destroying someone in the process.
While Moses did this physically, we do it verbally, mentally and emotionally. Psychological abuse. We manipulate, we taunt, we lie, we deceive and we scream at people. We do whatever we can to protect ourselves and our loved ones.
Our brains can’t handle the pain, the “breaker” flips and we go into survival mode. Fight, Flight or Freeze. Sometimes we run, sometimes we freeze, but sometimes we fight to the death.
There are ways out.
First, repentance and prayer. God heals us of our flaws when we repent, ask for forgiveness and fully commit to turning from our sins.
Second, you can help quiet those panic and alarm bells of survival mode with mental health techniques.
When we encounter too much stress, too often, our systems overload. This can be from past abuses that are getting triggered in the present moment. It can also be from too many little things adding up, and we need to release some of that pressure.
This is where Christian Stress Release is here to help you. We offer mental health resources to release the build up of the daily stressors and pains in life. Without all of that pressure, your brain can handle the daily struggles without flipping you into survival mode.
If you know there are pains from your past needing healing, one-on-one help from trained practitioners is for you. You can find lists of them here.
Here’s to coming back to the state of peace and rest, the peace of Jesus and the woman God designed you to be.
You deserve that ♥
– L aura
