John 6:10 Jesus said, “Have the people sit down.” Now there was much grass in the place. So the men sat down, in number about five thousand.
Exodus 14:13 But Moses said to the people, “Do not fear! Stand by and see the salvation of the LORD which He will accomplish for you today; for the Egyptians whom you have seen today, you will never see them again forever.”
The parallel between John 6:10 and Exodus 14:13 is striking. Although one references “sit” and the other “stand,” the meaning is the same. In both instances, the people were instructed to be still or do nothing.
It is precisely when our resources are exhausted that the Lord takes over. More than this, however, to be sure we are clear that it is the Lord at work, we are instructed to do nothing. Sit down or stand still means that we are not to exert force or strength in the struggle to obtain what we need next. The multitude was told to sit down, or to not attempt to gather the meal. The people of Israel were told to stand still, or to not push their way out of the situation.
This sounds all well and good for the believer. The Lord’s providence is as easy as exhausting our resources and then sitting down to wait for Him to show up miraculously, right?
In both instances, perhaps more so in Exodus, there was a divine purpose for the people to be where they were, and it was faith alone through obedience that was the channel for their deliverance. Thus, it cannot be said that the Lord will work like this in every single circumstance. For one, we would become reliant on Him to the point of expectation and complacency. Complacent people are ineffective at pretty much everything. The Lord cannot use ineffective people. Second, we would relax our obedience and trust in the Lord because the determining factor in His providence would be our need and not our allegiance.
The people of Israel were told by the Lord through Moses to leave Egypt. The multitude in John were following Jesus to seek righteousness. Jesus told us that we are not to worry but instead to seek His righteousness and all these things (everything we need) would be added to us (Matthew 6:25-33). When we are following a specific call from the Lord, we are to move ahead without giving thought to the things that we need. Our worry that we may not have the resources we need to fulfill the Lord’s call is not to stand in the way of our going forward through obedience.
If the Lord has specifically called us to go forward in a certain direction, for a certain purpose or to follow a direct call, then He will not fail to provide us the things we need to complete the task. It is the Lord’s work, not ours, and if it fails the failure reflects on Him, not on us. Getting that straight in our minds will greatly help our faith.
The only obstacle in our pathway is our faith and obedience, or rather, our lack of faith and disobedience. When a mighty, blood-thirsty, angry army is on your heels with no way out of harm’s way or when there is no clear way to satisfy your long-aching hunger, the most difficult decision is to do nothing. It defies all logic. It brings us to question the Lord and whether the instruction we thought we received from Him was interpreted correctly. It causes us to consider that perhaps through some sin or miscalculation on our part we have lost the Lord’s favor.
There are times that the Lord seems as if He does not know what He is doing or it seems that He has abandoned us. There have been times in my own life when it seems the Lord is lurching forward and then backward and forward again. There have been times for me, and no doubt for you as well either in the past or to come when the Lord would have you go forward and then wait. Go forward and wait.
The first step in such situations is to recall to mind the instruction or call the Lord laid on your heart. Then look back to see what the Lord has done thus far in bringing this instruction or call to pass in your life.
If you can clearly see the hand of the Lord at work up to this point, then search the Lord to find what He wants you to do as you face the next challenge. If you sense He is telling you to sit down or stand still, then it is the right decision. As with our Scripture lesson, this is especially true when our resources are exhausted, there is work yet to be done or ground yet to cover, and something that is out of our reach is needed to enable forward progress to continue.
The Lord takes over and provides a stunning display of His glory and power that lets everyone involved know that He is the Supreme Lord of lords and King of kings. It is instances such as these that the world can see who the Lord is and be drawn to Him. We are, thus, channels of the Lord’s glory in the world and of the gospel message to the lost and hurting if we would but listen to Him and trust that He knows what He is doing.
Standing still or sitting down is extremely hard and counterintuitive. However, if the Lord has called us, we can rest assured that the path on which He is currently leading us will not lead into something destructive. The people of Israel demonstrated a lack of trust when they grumbled against the Lord because they believed the Lord had intentionally led them into a trap to be mercilessly slaughtered by the Egyptian army.
This is not how the Lord works, and we should learn a lesson from the people of Israel that grumbling is the wrong action. The Lord often opens doors to things that we never even considered would be possible, and we must not put the Lord in a box to presume that He will only open doors that we can see. If we believed that the Lord only opened the doors that we can see, then we run the risk of barging through one of those doors without waiting for the hidden door to open to something better than we could have imagined were possible.
We exercise our faith when we wait, stand still and sit down because we are in effect giving the Lord the room He needs to work out a solution to our problem and to open other doors that we never considered. We give Him the room He needs to bring into our lives the very best for us and the maximum glory to Himself.
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