INTRODUCTION
I remember one time someone I knew was staying in a hospital for treatment, and decided to take some very careless, and dangerous actions toward his own health.
His wife was getting urgent calls from the hospital when he (in a serious condition) had unplugged all of his IV Tubes and went about walking miles home on his own without telling anyone. She was frantic and tried to talk sense into him over the phone but couldn’t. Someone encouraged her with these words, "Don’t carry the guilt for this or his health, since he made his choice and is refusing, you are not responsible - you tried what you could. We are only called to peace. Now just pray, and leave it in God’s hands. That’s your job now, to pray."
Later she said that she was so encouraged by this that this was the word that helped carry her through that.
And I was reminded that we have such burdens for others... and that means we want to help them, but we will find that we cannot control them. We can't control others, but we can love them. We can't control others, but we can choose to lean on God, and pray, and place our trust for the others we are burdened for in His hands.
I see this attitude in Jesus and Paul and the apostles - they exhorted people, but after a certain point they left it to the Holy Spirit to do the work which they could not do in the flesh (John 16:12, Eph 1:15-18).
And after we have done our part to speak what we feel we need to, that is our calling too - to set ourselves to pray.
Jesus said to His disciples, "I have many more things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth..." (John 16:12-13)
Paul said to the Ephesians, "I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened" (Ephesians 1:18)
See how clearly Paul, and even Jesus didn't think they could manipulate people and do a work in the hearts of others with their efforts and words!
Question: Why couldn't Jesus and Paul just tell the disciples what they needed to hear? Why couldn't they just explain it to them?
It's because it's a matter of LIFE in the heart, not INFORMATION in the mind. The new covenant spiritual life is inward, a matter of the will - dying to self, and gaining life in Jesus. Not a matter of “knowing more.” That’s why, for many, no matter how much truth is explained to them, they either don’t believe it or don’t care. Can you speak such great words that you can convince a dead person to get up and walk?! God has to do something that we can never do: give life; bring a change of heart to a person first.
In the parable of the sower the same seed was sown all over, but only on the good soil did it grow and endure (Mark 4:8). So much frustration can be avoided for the “sower” when we see that we cannot do the work. God Himself has to prepare a person’s heart (the soil) before any word can do any good.
Jesus and Paul recognized that 'explaining' and trying to manipulate people with words was never God's way. God has to do a work of the Holy Spirit in a heart; to give revelation. To give life.
Sometimes the work God does in a heart is through breaking of a deep trial, sometimes through failure, sometimes through a revelation in some way, or witnessing the goodness of God through the testimony of someone else's life. But either way - God has to do a work in the heart. It cannot be us. In the beginning - the Spirit was there, and God spoke, and then light and life came (Genesis 1:2-25). Where was man in all that? Nowhere!
So do we do nothing? No! We pray and TRUST GOD. And be patient. Our work is not manipulation and control, it's prayer and trusting the Lord.
How many problems come because we try to compel and force people? Forcing them to change how we think they should, in the way we think, in the timing we think. But Jesus was so trusting in the Father. He said that He preached to those who have “ears to hear” (Matthew 11:15). I believe what He's saying when He said this, is that He was aiming to preach to "those with ears to hear" because He wasn’t trying in His own power (as a man) to do the work that He knew the Holy Spirit Himself had to do in the heart.
Hudson Taylor said that one thing he learned was: "to move man by prayer alone". It's not that we do nothing. Hudson Taylor wasn’t saying that, but it’s where he was deciding to acknowledge the whole work needed to come from the Holy Spirit alone.
We exhort people when needed, and urge people we care for, and plead with them - with love. But if they won’t receive it - we have to leave it in God’s hands rather than push and fight and control. God has called us to peace: "If possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men" (Romans 12:18)
A QUESTION
But I’ve found this question comes: “But what if I’m supposed to be doing something or saying something God wants me to do for their good? What if I’m missing something, or neglecting something?” And I’m frantic that I’m not doing things right - that they may miss out because I haven't "done enough" to exhort them.
Here’s what the Lord has helped me with regarding this (I’ve struggled with this A LOT!):
The more we seek to be filled with the Holy Spirit and to put Him first and follow the Lord wholeheartedly - whatever I should speak or do for the sake of another one just flows out naturally, without any of the fretting and worrying “what should I do to move them?” This is “rivers of living water”, where with the Holy Spirit is filling us, it will flow out so naturally to do God’s work without us having to stress with all of the conjuring up things in our own mind. "Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness [in your own personal life] and the rest will be added to you."
We often talk in the church of the necessity of being filled with the Holy Spirit, and it’s sometimes easy to feel like it’s some abstract, far off truth that we don’t understand and so we can't imagine how it could change anything. This is so far from the truth! To be filled with the Holy Spirit is to have the Christian life that we are striving so much for just to “flow from us” in every area - having the clarity, the right word, the wisdom, boldness, peace, strength - every need just “flowing”. And this is just one real example. We have to seek the Lord with all our heart above everything else, and seek to be filled with the Holy Spirit - everyday, because every day has new needs.
The alternative is to labor in our own efforts, for our own will. A lot of what we think is good for someone, how do we even know what is good for them?! And so we can push our effort and our will. Constant badgering people is a form of trying to control them, nagging, complaining and arguing is a form of trying to control them, lashing in anger, giving a condescending look of disapproval and judgment, even sharing a Bible verse with the wrong spirit (condemnation, guilt, and threatening - rather than love) can be a form of trying to control them!
And all of this is the sin of unbelief on our part because we are trying to take situations into our own hands with others in our own way, rather than trusting God.
PERSONAL SITUATION - JUST TRUST GOD
One time I was talking to someone about the fear I had that another person would do something or cause something that would be very difficult. I was wondering, "What more should I do beside pray?" I asked a question to someone I trusted, "But what if this person does this?" And they said to me, "You need to TRUST the Lord." It was so simple... but it was like my eyes were opened in 1 second - I saw that all of my thoughts and plans about all I needed to do and say, and fears of 'What if' were: a lack of faith. It was plain and simple unbelief.
I needed to Trust God.
LOVE
One of best things we can do for our own peace is to lift expectations off everyone else, looking to God alone.
We can’t other control people, but God does command us to love them.
We can’t decide how they act or treat us, but we can by God’s grace decide to love them and treat them right. Not even just for their sake but more importantly for the glory of God -
“...if anyone suffers as a Christian, he is not to be ashamed, but is to glorify God in this name.” (1 Peter 4:16)
We are living before His face alone, our business is mainly that He will get glory from our own life... placing no expectations that others have to change at all, but maintaining a hope for others that in God's time, He will do the work. In the meantime we have to follow the Spirit regarding what to say and how to interact... without being frantic.
God placed you in their life for a reason, and He placed these others in your life too for a reason.
MAYBE IT'S THE LORD'S WILL
Someone we know may be in sin or out of the Lord's will. It may be affecting us, or others. Perhaps they won't listen to anyone, and in that case we have to leave it. But with regard to any harm coming from it to ourselves we have to say: "Maybe it's the Lord's will to allow this."
Shimei threw rocks at David. David said, "Maybe it's the Lord's will" (2 Samuel 16:10).
For Shimei - definitely he was in sin. But for David - it was God's will for him to endure that faithfully. So as odd as it is to say, that whole situation was God's will to allow it, even though there was someone in sin. God didn't cause all the mess, but He allowed it, and David accepted it because of His faith - "God must be allowing this for a reason. Maybe it's for me, that I need this."
CONCLUSION
Whatever I write here I'm also working to encourage myself with God's promises and His Word: Regarding the people we are burdened for (or burdened by!), we have to trust God. We do what we can from our part, but our hope completely has to lean on His ability, and not in our own endless efforts to force other people.
Trying to control other people like this is like trying to force open a flower before it is ready to bloom. God's way and His timing is better.
And regarding the meantime, it's a slavery to live life muddling through in discouragement and fear, concerning ourselves with what everyone else is doing or may do, feeling that we can never be happy in the Lord unless this other person changes. God wants us free from that. Seek the Lord to be delivered from that slavery!
One of the greatest lessons we can learn in this life before we leave this earth is that there is a fulfillment, joy and satisfaction in God and Christ alone, apart from anything else and anybody else (Psalm 73:25, Php 3:8) which is there for us to gain before Heaven.
There's a freedom for us if we're in Christ to be free from whatever anyone else is doing or saying, and from our sin and self that makes us want to control everything. Live before God's face alone in humility, carrying our own cross and humbly accepting every person that He decides should be in our life, along with all the difficulties that may come through them, burdens we have for them (God loves them much more than we do, and He loved them first!), or fears we have from them.
Leave it to the Lord, and especially in His timing. Be patient. Place it in God’s hands and rest.
Even when you feel that you can do nothing (like you are ‘asleep’ in the situation), remember that God is still working:
“It is vain for you to rise up early, To retire late, To eat the bread of painful labors; For He gives to His beloved even in his sleep.” Psalms 127:2