We Do Not Know What to Do

We Do Not Know What to Do

2 Chronicles 20:12 to 13 - "We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you." 2 Chronicles 20:12

This may be one of the most honest prayers in the Bible.

"We do not know what to do."

Jehoshaphat was king. People looked to him for decisions. His position required answers. Yet there he stood before Judah admitting that he did not have one.

There are seasons when experience stops being enough. You have handled difficult things before, but this one is different. The usual solution does not fit. The people you normally ask do not know either. You have considered the reasonable options and none of them gives you peace.

We often experience that as failure.

Maybe it is not.

Maybe there are places in life where God allows our confidence in our own ability to reach its limit.

Jehoshaphat's sentence did not end with his ignorance.

"We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on You."

He did not know what to do, but he knew where to look.

That distinction is everything.

There is a difference between having no answer and having no hope.

We often confuse the two.

If we cannot see the way forward, we assume there is no way forward. Yet Scripture repeatedly brings people to places where human calculation reaches its limit without God reaching His.

Israel stood before the Red Sea with Pharaoh's army behind them.

Abraham climbed Moriah carrying questions the text does not pretend were simple.

The disciples looked at thousands of hungry people and knew that what they possessed could not possibly be enough.

Again and again, people reached the end of what they could see while God remained fully aware of what came next.

Perhaps maturity is not always knowing what to do.

Sometimes maturity is knowing where to keep your eyes until you know what to do.

The next verse says that all the men of Judah, together with their wives, children and little ones, stood there before the Lord.

They stood.

For that moment, there was no strategy.

There were simply people standing before God.

We are not very good at that. We want the answer before the prayer ends. We want clarity before we leave the room. We want God to explain the next six months when He may only be giving grace for today.

Sometimes God gives immediate direction.

Sometimes He does not.

When He does not, you do not have to manufacture an answer simply because uncertainty makes you uncomfortable.

You can stand.

You can continue doing the last thing you clearly know is right. You can seek wise counsel. You can remain attentive. You can refuse to allow panic to choose on God's behalf.

There is no shame in saying, "I don't know."

Sometimes those are the words that finally make room for, "God, show me."

What are you desperately trying to figure out at the moment?

What would happen if, for today, you stopped demanding the entire answer?

Can you genuinely say, "Lord, I do not know what to do, but my eyes are on You," without immediately following it with instructions about what you want Him to do?

Stay with that prayer for a while.

Prayer

Father, I do not know what to do about some things. I have thought about them, prayed about them, discussed them and imagined every possible outcome. Somewhere along the way, my search for an answer has sometimes become louder than my search for You. So today I stop pretending that I know. My eyes are on You. When it is time to move, guide me. When it is time to wait, keep me from forcing something You have not opened. When wisdom comes through other people, give me humility to receive it. When You are asking me simply to trust You for another day, give me grace for that day. I may not know what comes next, but I know where I am looking. My eyes are on You. In Jesus' name, Amen.