Don’t Just Stand There, Do Something
Do you ever find yourself looking around at the world you live in and just wanting to throw your hands up and say, “What’s the use?” I feel that more often than not, as we take inventory, we become overwhelmed with all that needs to be changed to restore our world to its original glory. I believe we might even come to a place where we think, “If what I’m doing isn’t going to make any significant difference, what does it matter if things deteriorate a little bit more?”
I’m sure we could all come up with a list of reasons to remain passive. The problems are too many and too large. You see the size of the problems; you know what your limitations are, and it quite frankly doesn’t make sense that you could make any difference at all. Consider with me these three arguments that we tend to make that appease our conscience and keep us passive and uninvolved.
I’m Too Small
We are fully aware that we have little authority to change people or to alter any circumstances significantly. When we compare our size to the size of the problems around us, we are more often ready to quit before we even get started.
Do you remember the very first words from Moses’ mouth when God called him to go back to Egypt? We find them in Exodus 3:11, “Who am I, that I should go unto Pharaoh, and that I should bring forth the children of Israel out of Egypt?” God reminds Moses of his commission and Moses still replies with, “I’m afraid I won’t know what to say.” To answer that rebuttal, God tells Moses that He will give him the words. Then Moses asks, “But what if they don’t believe me?” God then shows Moses two miraculous signs that He would give him to prove his message was from God. Moses then says, “I am slow of speech and tongue.” God reminded him that He had made his mouth.
There are two ways to view Moses’ response. First, he was accurately identifying his weaknesses in himself, but what he was completely overlooking was that the one asking him to do these things was the Almighty Creator, who had the power to bring these things to pass. Moses wasn’t displaying a doubt in his own abilities, but rather a doubt in the sovereign and power of God.
Take heart that God knows that in ourselves we are not up to the tasks He has called us, be He never makes a false assignment. Where He sends us, we are sent as instruments in His mighty hands. He never calls us to what we cannot accomplish in Him, but He always calls us to what we could never accomplish without Him.
Eventually, God did do some amazing things through Moses, though he was fearful and weak. Pharaoh was silenced, Egypt defeated, and Israel delivered.
The Problem Is Too Big
An illustration from the life of Moses comes to mind, yet again. The children of Israel find themselves in the wilderness. They are complaining because they are tired of the mana that God provides every day to sustain them. God tells Moses that He is going to send quail for an entire month, until it comes out their noses and they hate it! (Num. 11:18-20)
Notice Moses’ response in vv. 21-22: “And Moses said, The people, among whom I am, are six hundred thousand footmen; and thou hast said, I will give them flesh, that they may eat a whole month. Shall the flocks and the herds be slain for them, to suffice them? or shall all the fish of the sea be gathered together for them, to suffice them?”
Obviously, Moses understands that it will take a great deal to feed more than 600,000 hungry people for an entire month. Moses fails to understand the God who is calling him to act. In Moses’ eyes, the God he serves is smaller than the God who actually exists and has called him.
God rebukes his thinking in v. 23 and says, “Is the Lord’s hand waxed short?” In other words, is there anything I cannot do? Do you think I’m not able to do what I said? It is a reminder to us that no problem is too big for our God.
It’s Not My Problem
We often appease our conscience by telling ourselves that we would get involved if we had time, but we already have too much on our own plate. There is some truth to that thinking. We are all limited in our time, energy, and resources, but I would venture to say that all too often we take ourselves off the hook far too easily.
Consider this, is it possible that our passivity to the needs around us has grown not out of our commitment to prioritize what God has called us to do, but rather a neglect to how He has commanded us to live? It’s the difference between focusing on specific behaviors as opposed to a particular kind of lifestyle.
Micah puts it this way in Micah 6:6-8:
“Wherewith shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before the high God? shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves of a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil? shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?”
Micah’s call takes us beyond a “me and mine” way of looking at the call of God, to realizing that God requires His people to be instruments of justice and mercy wherever they go. How you live is much more comprehensive and broader than your specific actions and roles.
I cannot help but think of Christ’s words in His Sermon on the Mount in Matt. 5:14-16: “Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.”
In essence what Jesus is saying is that you, who are mine, have been lit by my grace, no go and let my character shine through you. How does Jesus say this is done? A public life, characterized by good deeds, that flows out of a changed heart.
We again find a call to step out into this darkened world, not giving in to our thoughts of smallness, or the magnitude of the problem, or the distance that it is from our own backyard. Rather it’s a call to remember who you are (a person who has been lit by the transforming grace of God) and who He is (the Almighty Creator God full of power and grace) and step out, looking for opportunities to do something and make a difference for eternity.