All to Him I Owe

I had the privilege of playing little league baseball for much of my youth. Though I had the opportunity to pitch for a few seasons, my primary position was always catcher. During one of the playoffs, a hitter stepped away from a wild pitch and erratically swung his bat, hitting me in the head. Although I had a helmet on, my head got rattled; and I began to experience dizziness. Coach pulled me from the game, and I got sidelined for one our biggest games of the season. I hated being sidelined! I wanted to be in the game. I didn’t want to just watch the team work; I wanted to be doing the work.

Similarly, there are times in our ministries where we feel like we got sidelined. Physical maladies, trials outside our control, and sinful struggles that leave us feeling inadequate are all things that can seem to pull us from the front lines of ministry. When those things have hit my life, I have often asked the Lord, “Why? What are you doing? Why have you sidelined me?

Have you ever wrestled with those same questions?

It is hard when you move from being very busy and active in ministry life to suddenly sitting on the sidelines out of play and wondering what our role is to now be. It is easy to be tempted on the sideline and to withdraw into a self-focused emotional cocoon and lose heart. We begin to think, “After all, what good am I anyway?”

I would like to share four simple thoughts with you for the times when we feel sidelined in the work of God.

1. Focus on what God is doing, rather than what you are not doing. I love Exodus 14:13 when God tells the Israelites to “stand still” at the water’s edge, while the Egyptians were bearing down upon them. The human instinct would have been to turn around and fight or jump in the water and swim! But God told them to stand and see. We miss seeing the mighty hand of God at work when we are focused on what we can’t do, rather than on what God is doing. The Israelites got to observe one of the greatest miracles in the Bible by standing still and watching. The sea split, the ground was made dry, and Egyptians died without the Israelites ever lifting a sword! Don’t miss out on seeing the work God wants to do when you are sidelined.

2. Do the little that you can with the little that you have. The last few years have brought a new malady to my life that happens every fall. I get a kidney stone! My kidney stones have resulted in long days in bed, sleepless nights, even a few hospital stays. I am sidelined! I can’t read my Bible, preach, teach, check email, or meet with people. I’m out of commission. I’m slowly learning that though I’m limited, there are little things God still allows me to do. Sleepless nights have found moments of special prayer for others suffering in our church. I have also found that rather than going on visitation, I’m the object of others’ visitation. When I’m visited, I have an opportunity to minister from my bed to those God sends. When you find yourself on the side line, do the little you can with the little that you have.

3. Don’t miss the lessons that are taught in the classroom of inactivity. Just because you are sidelined from the front lines of ministry doesn’t mean God is going to stop ministering to you. Seasons of inactivity are creatively designed by God to teach you some things that you could perhaps only learn in a state of stillness. Don’t be so frustrated with being out of the game that you fail to learn. Don’t miss the fact that God is doing something in you, though it may not feel like He is working through you.

4. Remember God works in our weakness. This is my final and most important point! II Corinthians 12:9 promises that the greater our weakness, the greater God works! The greater God works, the greater glory He receives. I often feel that my work for God has become pathetic when He sidelines me. But isn’t it true that my works for God are always pathetic? Any good that has ever come from these hands of ministry were because God did it! In God’s economy, He chooses to use clay pots and earthen vessels to do His work so that He will get full glory. The work of God doesn’t cease when we are sidelined! In fact, His work increases.

This is and always will be God’s work. It is a privilege to be part of God’s work, whether you are in the field or on the sideline. Don’t let a season on the sideline discourage you.

I recently penned this principle in the margin of my Bible next to Psalm 44:“He who will properly reflect on history will be confronted with the One who should be trusted in the present.”

I want to show you where this helpful principle comes from. So let’s study Psalm 44 together.The psalmist begins with a brief synopsis of Israel’s history. As you read this history, note the words thou, thine, thee, and thy in the first three verses of the Psalm.

To the chief Musician for the sons of Korah, Maschil. We have heard with our ears, O God, our fathers have told us, what work thou didst in their days, in the times of old. How thou didst drive out the heathen with thy hand, and plantedst them; how thou didst afflict the people, and cast them out. For they got not the land in possession by their own sword, neither did their own arm save them: but thy right hand, and thine arm, and the light of thy countenance, because thou hadst a favour unto them.

The facts speak for themselves! God is the one who had led, protected, and sustained Israel. It is hard to argue with history. Does a survey of your personal history reveal the same thing? Think about the spouse you married, your children, the needs that God has met, the job you have, the home you live in, the trials God has brought you through. Do you see the unmistakable hand of God in those things?

So, what do we do with the knowledge of God’s unmistakable hand in our past? Answer – we trust God in the present. Look at verse 5 and note the trusting conclusion the Psalmist had come to.

Through thee will we push down our enemies: through thy name will we tread them under that rise up against us.

Trusting in God, however, is not just the activity of resting in God. It also includes rejecting the tendency to do things on our own. Note how the Psalmist says it in vs. 6.

For I will not trust in my bow, neither shall my sword save me.

Choosing to trust God in our present circumstances must include a refusal to trust in our own resources. The Psalmist mentions his bow and sword. We may not have weapons that we lean on like that, but all of us have particular resources we tend to lean on. Things like our work ethic, strength, wisdom, experiences, money, and authority are all a sample of things we tend to hold to rather than trusting God completely. Proverbs 3:5 supports this thought when it says, “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart and lean not unto thy own understanding.” There is a two-sided act of trust. One is to rely on God! The second is to reject the act of relying on my own resources.

Let’s allow the proven facts of history to shape our week. Trust God in the present, because He has proven to be reliable in the past!

Let’s think about this Psalm today! Or, as the Psalmist puts it in verse 8, Selah.