When all of life caves in, what then? We may wonder, “Is God there? Does God care?” Our first instinct may be to take matters into our own hands. A panicked voice inside our heads may say, “Don’t just stand there. Do something!” God may have another plan.
Once again, a famine jeopardized the lives of the family God had chosen. Isaac thought about running for his life down to Egypt. But God arrested him with a vision and great promises. What did God say? “Don’t just do something, stand there.” If Isaac trusted God and obeyed, the Lord promised to provide for his needs and to give his descendants the promised land. Not only would God bless Isaac, but he would make his descendants a blessing to all the people on the earth. Against his own instincts, Isaac stayed there.
Sometimes the hardest and best thing to do is to remain where we are. “Trust in the Lord and do good. Dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture. . . Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him,” wrote the Psalmist (Psalm 37:3, 7). I recently heard a magnificent story about an elderly Christian gentleman. Someone asked him why in his later years he had joined a church which was so different from his personal preferences. The senior saint replied with the words of an old hymn, “Trust and obey. For there’s no other way to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey.”
