When You Don't Know What to Do

Many times, just before God brings you into your appointed season, you will pass through a stretch of drought — a wilderness of pain, difficulty, and challenge in which you honestly do not know what to do. You are not the first to feel this, and you will not be the last.

• Abraham went through years of spiritual wilderness, not knowing whether his mistake had cancelled the promise God made to him.
• Joseph endured years of hardship, and for a long time had no idea whether his dream would ever come to pass.
• Moses spent forty years in obscurity — a former prince of Egypt, tending his father-in-law's goats.
• Hannah, and Rebecca before her, waited through years of not knowing whether they would ever hold a child.

What do you do when the report from the doctor, or the bank, or from family back home is a really bad one? I have faced a moment like that myself, when my wife had to go in for a long and serious surgery and lost so much blood that she needed several transfusions. In moments like that, all your confidence drains away, and the question presses in: what do I do now?

It is true that God has a set time for you — a season of favor He has appointed. But what do you do while you wait for the promise to come to pass? How do you cooperate with the Lord so as to hasten, and not delay, His visitation? The good news is that three young men once faced exactly this scenario, and their story in Daniel chapter 3 gives us the answer. Standing before a furnace and an impossible choice, two things stand out about them: they did not panic, and they were committed to serving God. Everything else flows from there.

First: Be Still — Your Father Knows

When you do not know what to do, the first thing is to be still. Be calm. Do not panic. Do not let yourself be stressed and anxious — because even though you do not know what to do, God does. That is the whole point. Your not-knowing is not the final word, because your Father in heaven is never at a loss.

Be still, and know that I am God.

Psalm 46:10

The apostle Paul says, "Be careful for nothing" — be anxious for nothing. When the king pressed the three young men, their reply was remarkable: "We are not careful to answer you in this matter." They were not frantic. They were settled. And here is a truth that steadies the heart: in many cases God has already done what you are waiting for — you simply have not yet seen Him do it.

Fear ye not, stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord, which he will shew to you to day.

Exodus 14:13

Jesus said the same when He told us not to worry about our lives, because our Father knows what we need. And because He has already risen to show you favor, because He has brought you into your season, He will show up — and He will show up right on time. So the first assignment is not to figure everything out. It is to be still and trust that God knows.

Second: Keep Serving the Lord

The second thing is to stay committed to serving God, precisely because you know He knows what to do and He will take care of you. When the three young men were threatened, they spoke of "our God whom we serve." Their devotion did not waver just because the situation looked hopeless.

Notice the enemy's strategy. The king did not, at first, demand that they abandon God entirely — the real temptation is often subtler than that. The pressure says: serve God quietly. Don't be so open about it. Keep your faith private. After all, you don't know what to do, and you're not even sure God can move here. That is the voice that tries to pull us into compromise in the hard season.

Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.

Hebrews 4:16

Scripture urges us to hold fast to our profession by coming to the throne of grace. Here is why that matters so much: the enemy's primary goal is to get you to stop serving God. And when he sees he cannot dislodge you from that, he eventually leaves you alone. Remember what happened with Jesus in the wilderness — "the devil leaveth him, and, behold, angels came and ministered unto him." The devil left, and then His powerful ministry began. Refuse to let go of God in the hard season, and you will find the pressure eventually lifts and the ministering angels come.

Third: Stand on God's Word — and Speak It

The third thing is the heart of it: when you really do not know what to do, stand on God's Word. Stand on it, because what God has said, He will do. When you do not know what to do, you need to live and act as if God knows what to do — and He has told you what He will do in His Word.

So find out what God has said about your situation, and stand on it. Speak it. Make it your confession. The grass withers and the flower fades, but the Word of God stands forever. God watches over His Word to perform it. He is not a man, that He should lie. Even if it took a thousand years, what God has said will happen is what will happen.

Most of us know the word of a man all too well — the word of the bank, the word of the doctor, the word of the teacher. But you need to know God's Word and stand on that instead. For your children, He has spoken. For your finances and your work, He has spoken — if He gave you Jesus, why would He not also provide for you? For your health, He has spoken. Let God be true, and every contradicting voice be silenced.

How do you come to know that Word? Through personal study, and through the life of the church together. Scripture says God's people perish for lack of knowledge. The reason the serpent was able to sway Eve was that she did not know clearly what God had actually said. But Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego knew the Word, and so they could speak the Word they knew.

There Is Power in What You Say

So when you do not know what to do, open your mouth and speak God's Word — do not speak your weakness, do not rehearse your failure. Speak the Word. David faced a giant and opened his mouth and spoke what God had said, and the giant fell. There is real power in the word you speak.

Death and life are in the power of the tongue.

Proverbs 18:21

When you speak the Word of God, you release Jesus into your situation. You bring the power of God's kingdom to bear on it. The angel told Daniel, "your words were heard, and I have come in response to them" — not in response to his fasting alone, but to the words he spoke. When you do not know what to do, open your mouth wide and release God's Word over your circumstances. The worst thing you can do is stay silent.

And when words fail you, there is still the language of the Spirit. When you pray in the Spirit, or lift up praise and worship, you bypass the limits of your own mind and connect with God at a deeper level. Scripture says praying in the Spirit builds up your faith and helps you pray according to God's will, even when you do not know exactly how to pray. The Word of God that is lodged in your spirit — even things you read long ago and cannot consciously recall — begins to rise up and be released.

So this is what you do when you do not know what to do. Be still, because your Father knows. Keep serving Him, because He will take care of you. And stand on His Word and speak it, because what God has said, He will surely do. You may not know the way forward — but you know the One who does.