God’s Idler

Wherefore be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is. (Ephesians 5:17)

It has dawned on me that the essence of wisdom is not the application of knowledge as the world believes and teaches.

It is knowing and understanding God’s will.

Knowing God’s will means pursuing the knowledge and performing or doing it just like in the Bible hearing is equated with obeying what we hear.

The example God gave me to understand this is extreme.

Do you realise that Elijah was an idler for three and a half years?

What I mean is that he was doing nothing in our understanding.

Let us go to the Bible.

Go to the brook. Ravens will feed you and you will drink from the brook. Meaning? Do nothing.

Later, go to Zarephath and a widow will feed you.

Do you realise that he was given no other order to complement that?

Apart from the raising of the widow’s son from the dead what else did he do of any importance?

Is that not the reason Ahab was unable to trace him though he sought him in all the neighboring (and I believe far off) nations? And we know he was in Jezebel’s backyard for that matter.

He was simply idle, idle for God.

He was idle on God’s orders.

For some of us who love activity; for those who equate activity with work and impact, this rubs us in the wrongest of ways.

It is inconceivable for a prophet of Elijah’s stature to be just idling around doing nothing.

Worst of it was that it was in a heathen nation where his ministry could have done so much good.

Imagine the number of people who could have turned to the God of Israel if Elijah had decided to release the lion that was him! Imagine the throngs of people that could have submitted to the God he served if he had decided to share his faith with them! Couldn’t he have done what Jonah had reluctantly done to Nineveh?

That is our thinking.

No wonder God says that His foolishness is wiser than our wisdom. That His wisdom is foolishness in our eyes.

It is impossible to wrap our minds around a minister of Elijah’s stature in a heathen place doing nothing, for three whole years!

Yet that was God’s order.

We would like to think that he was backslidden to hide in such a place.

But God astounds us with the amount of power he leaves that idleness with.

Imagine confronting a despotic king with his eight hundred and fifty prophets (on the king’s payroll) in a nation totally sold out to idolatry!

Therefore, allow me to ask, was the prophet really idling around?

Yes and No.

Yes because he was doing nothing in the eyes of everybody who saw him.

And No because God had sent him to idle there for His purpose.

But I suspect it also astounded Elijah, being the man of action we know him to be.

I imagine him wrestling with himself and wondering whether he really was where God wanted him, the only consolation being that he really had nowhere else to go due to the famine.

But I am sure of one thing, though. He never once questioned God’s order.

It would be folly to imagine someone who could distinguish God’s still small voice amidst the racquet of earthquake, fire, etc, questioning an order he had received.

What am I saying?

The primary task facing everybody on the face of the earth is knowing God’s will.

God’s people will know and follow through in obedience. The others will either surround themselves with so much noise that it becomes impossible to hear, or refuse to listen, or in other words respond to what they hear.

God’s voice has been released to all creation because He is the One who has created the same. Incidentally I will treat will and voice as the same thing because they require a response, I am sure the same response.

Lest you think I am overstretching this truth, allow me to give another verse

The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy is understanding. (Proverbs 9:10)

And there are several other verses like it.

What is the will of God? You may be asking

First is knowing who God is and what He stands for (His attributes) and what He expects of us.

We sure can’t know His specific will for us before we allow His person to influence who we are.

As an example, it would be preposterous to be asking God to guide you to your marriage partner when you are experimenting with sex. It would be outrageous to ask God to guide you to a hardworking and reliable partner when you are a lazy scoundrel.

Knowing the will of God starts with knowing who God is.

It automatically starts with knowing His word. We must crave His word so that we spend a good amount of our most precious time reading, hearing and meditating on it.

We must create time to know God’s word.

That is the beginning of knowing His will because we will know who He is and what He expects of us.

Then we must decide to unashamedly and furiously do what the word tells us.

It is as we are pursuing that that He will start releasing His specific will to us, many times using the same word.

What are some of the implications of this message?

Do you know that spiritual or ministry burnout is sin that should be repented of?

Why do I say so?

Can God really lead you to a breakdown if you are following His leading? It therefore means that I ministered outside God’s will. And we know that God is bound to those He is leading. Meaning I will be outside the reach of His grace by the time I am burning out.

Or do you not remember what happened when the same Elijah was out of his wits and probably energy after that confrontation with the forces of evil?

God led him, fed him and gave him a journey that must have refreshed him so that he could then face his new challenges.

Second is the fact that we are very narrowminded when we argue for ministers working side by side with ministry. We are very shallow when we shout that one must work to eat.

What work was Elijah doing for those three and a half years. Or do we call idling work?

We must define work for the believer.

Though generally work produces food (and I am now a mini farmer of sorts), it is not right to assume ministry does not qualify as work. For my case I am doing it because God has ordered me to do it and He is using it to give me very valuable lessons on ministry.

My farming does not give me money or food. It is God who does. For the time I spend in that enterprise, I could as well be wasting my time. Except that I am doing it on God’s orders. I will dispose of the same if God ordered me because I am His servant.

In fact, ministry could be the only work in God’s economy.

Otherwise, what does this mean?

But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. (Matthew 6:33)

If seeking the kingdom of God is the primary duty of man, what does it mean for the person whose responsibility is to guide people in that pursuit?

It is like saying that farming is work yet calling the farming consultant idle! It is like saying sports is work but calling the coach an idler!

Yet is that not what we do all the time?

What do people who preach from the rooftops about tentmaking teach?

It is vain to serve God. It does not pay to serve God wholeheartedly. Serving God exclusively is a vain pursuit.

Could it be the reason many ministers are perishing because ministry cannot sustain them and they must pursue a plan B? Could it be the reason ministers are sinking into depression and alcoholism because the ministries they serve under insist they must as part of the assignment either look for supporters or make tents? Could it be the reason ministers are committing suicide since nobody seems to appreciate or understand their situations? Could it be the reason ministers are despairing and falling back into sin and the world since ministry is an unachievable goal? Could it be the reason preachers are peppering and seasoning their sermons, songs and other messages to be able to access that elusive support?

Sorry I must be this bold.

But it is important to learn from this example that listening and obeying God can never be idling.

Elijah, God’s idler was not idle. He was not doing nothing of importance. He was not running away from responsibility.

He was simply where God had wanted him to be, though idling in our eyes.

I have been chased from ministries because I insisted on doing what God was ordering instead of what the ‘ministry’ or ‘church’ dictated. I have been confronted for having backslidden because I had decided to go where God had sent me. I have been removed from leadership because I insisted that what God’s word said was final and not subject to second opinions. I have had my salary frozen because I refused to attend staff meetings in clubs. I have had ministries I started killed because I insisted on following God’s orders.

Do you know God’s will for your life? Do you know God’s will for your career? Do you know God’s will for your marriage? Do you know God’s will for your money?

That is wisdom

Will you determine to stop everything else so that or until you get to know God’s will?