Do Nothing

Today, I began reading the story of Jesus sleeping through the storm. The storm was bad enough to scare seasoned fishermen. These men have probably seen pretty bad storms, yet this one could have killed them. Though the situation was dire, Jesus did nothing to save their lives. The disciples had to wake Jesus and beg Him to intervene, and Jesus was none to happy about it: "He said to his disciples, 'Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?'" (Mark 4.40 NIV).

I also read about the first Easter, and realized the two stories are very similar. Jesus allowed the world to kill him, yet He did nothing stop them. There was a spiritual storm going on, but Jesus would not intervene. Jesus knew that His Crucifixion was a part of God's purpose. He had to have faith and relent to God's will.

After I read both stories, I felt the Holy Spirit tell me, "Sometimes I want you to do nothing."

I've experienced storms in my life in which I fought, begged and struggled. I realize in retrospect that I should have done nothing. I fought against situations, I begged God to help me and I struggled with people; but I should have just taken a cat-nap and let God deal with it. I needed to be still and meditate on God's greatness (Psalm 46.10).

God has battles He has anointed us to fight, and He promises us that He will go before us and claim our victory (Deuteronomy 20:4). However, there are battles that He will fight for us. There are situations, people and storms that God will take care of on our behalf, and He doesn't want us to lift a finger (Psalm 35.1). But we need to trust Him.

Sitting on our hands and trusting God is sometimes more painful than battling against everyone who persecutes us. We need to follow Jesus' example: Sometimes He confronted and other times He relented. Jesus trusted God's divine will.

All we have to do is stay in tuned with the Holy Spirit's leading. Is He telling us to prepare for battle or to prepare for bed? If we can pick and choose our battles based on God's ultimate design, we will not become wearing with defending ourselves all the time. God promises us that He will redeem us; we just need to have faith in His Word (Psalm 31.5).

Jesus did so many amazing things, and He was busy much of the time. However, He knew when He needed to work and when He needed to rest. If we could find that balance, we would reserve energy for the times God calls us to action. God does us a favor when He tells us to rest during the conflicts He knows we can do nothing about.

God allows certain storms to arise because they are a part of His master plan. If we fight against everything that attacks us, we might be accidentally resisting God: "But if it is from God, you will not be able to stop these men; you will only find yourselves fighting against God" (Acts 5.39 NIV).