Don't Force It

I wrote last week about the need for patience.  What follows is not intended in any way to contradict that.  However, I do want to go a little further into what patience is and what it is not.

There are times when we’re tempted to confuse patience with inaction.  We need to not force things to happen—we need to wait for God to act in God’s way and in God’s time--but that does not mean we should sit still and do nothing.  When God acts, it’s usually not through some supernatural force from above.  God certainly can do that, and I think sometimes God does do that.  But most of the time, when God acts, God acts through human beings.  People like you, and people like me.  That means that, if we want God to act, we need to act, too.

So how do we draw the line?  How do we tell the difference between doing what God wants us to do and forcing things to happen before God is ready for them to happen?

I think a lot of times, the difference lies in our attitude.  When I do something, including something aimed at trying to grow the church and bring people to God, why am I doing it?  Am I doing it out of love for God, because I know that’s what God wants me to do?  Or am I doing it because I want to achieve a specific result?

Now, maybe you read that and think, well, what’s wrong with wanting to achieve a specific result?  When we try to bring people to God, shouldn’t we want to succeed?  When we offer to bring people to church, shouldn’t we want them to actually come?  What’s wrong with that?

Well, there’s nothing wrong with it, really.  But the thing is, it can lead to us putting the emphasis in the wrong place.  It can also lead to us taking responsibilities that are not ours to take.

Doing things to achieve a specific result leads us to force things when we don’t see that result.  When we do things because we love God, because we know they’re what God wants us to do, we trust God with the result.  We may hope something will happen, but we’re not doing it to make something happen.  We’re doing it to serve God.  When we serve God, we know God will bless what we do, even if the blessing does not come when or how we want it or expect it.

God does not call us to succeed as the world defines success.  God does not even call us to succeed as we define success.  God calls us to love God.  We show our love for God by being faithful to God.  We show our love for God by serving God and obeying God.  And we show our love for God by trusting God with the results of that, rather than trying to force a specific result.

So let’s be patient.  But let’s continue to do everything we can to serve God and stay faithful to God.  That includes obeying Jesus’ command to go and make disciples.  When we do, though, let’s simply do the best we can and trust God with the results.  When we serve God and stay faithful to God, we can be confident that God will bless our efforts.  That blessing may not come when we want it to.  It may not come in the way we want it to.  But it will surely come.