When You Don’t Know What to Do

September 18, 2013

“We do not know what to do, but we are looking to you for help.”  (2Chronicles 20:12 NLT)

Have you ever faced problems that confronted you with the intolerable, the undeniable, the unthinkable and the impossible?  Throughout Hebrew and church history the people of God have often been confronted with these overwhelming realities.  Scripture supports the thought that God sometimes not only permits but creates these circumstances (Isaiah 45: 7).  According to Isaiah He does this because He wants us to learn that He is our only hope and our only help as we live for Him in this world.

The Word of God teaches that God is our Mentor and He does His most effective mentoring when we are coping with calamities and trials of every possible description.  The confession quoted above is proclaiming that the people of God have two problems.  They do not know what to do and they do not have the power to do it when they know it.

Scripture tells us God will give us all the wisdom we need when we confess that we do not know what to do (James 1:5).  And Scripture teaches that God will give us the power to do what He wants us to do because He is God and He always completes what He begins in us (Philippians 1:6; 2:13).

There are times when it is wrong for us to put God to the test.  Then there are times when God invites us to prove Him.  God wants to give us the gift of faith.  He also wants to give us immeasurable degrees of the grace to overcome the greatest possible obstacles.  That’s why He permits and designs calamities or trials that force us to access His all sufficient grace.

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Posted by Dick Woodward

When You Don’t Know What to Do

April 16, 2013

“We don’t know what to do but our eyes are on You.”  (2 Chronicles 20:12)

No matter how gifted we may be, sooner or later we will hit a wall of crisis where we simply do not know what to do.  The Scripture quoted above is taken from an historical context when the people of God were overwhelmingly outnumbered and they simply did not know what to do.

The earthly half-brother of Jesus wrote that when we do not know what to do we should ask God for the wisdom we confess we do not have (James 1:5).  He promises us that God will not hold back but dump a truckload of wisdom on us.

Years ago I received a telephone call from my youngest daughter when she was a first year student at the University of Virginia.  With many tears she informed me that she had fallen down a flight of stairs and was sure she had broken her back.  At the hospital they had discovered mononucleosis and seriously infected tonsils that needed to be removed.  She concluded her “organ recital” litany: “Finals begin tomorrow and I just don’t know what to do, Daddy!”

Frankly, I was touched that my very intelligent young daughter believed that if she could just share her litany of woes with me and tap into the vast resources of my wisdom I could tell her what to do when she did not know what to do.

According to James that is the way we make our heavenly Father feel when we come to Him overwhelmed with problems and tell Him we just don’t know what to do.  That’s why a good way to begin some days is:

“Lord, I don’t know what to do but my eyes on you!”

 

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Posted by Dick Woodward