I think most people would agree that right now, we are in the midst of a crisis. It’s easy to think of things like world-wide pandemics as crises, but anything that is life-changing or that wears us out and exhausts us can be a crisis for us. We each handle things that come our way differently. What might be a crisis for me may not be a crisis for you and vice versa. It’s fairly safe to say, however, that each of us will face a crisis (probably more than one) at some point in our lives. In a crisis, we tend to focus on the things that are going wrong. We look at our circumstances and at the world around us, and our focus is on what we can do and how we can fix it and how we can get out of it or get through it. We forget that we are physical and spiritual beings. We tend to ignore the spiritual sides of things in a crisis, but God wants to remind us that in a crisis, we need more than ever to be able to listen to Him.
When we’re in the middle of a crisis, our focus tends to be on what is right in our face. We are experiencing that crisis with our five senses. It feels like an emergency. We are overloaded with sensory input about what is going on right in front of us or in the world around us at that very minute. It can be incredibly tempting to rely completely on that information as the source of truth about what we’re experiencing. It can be tempting to respond out of a sense of fear and panic that is associated with what our senses are telling us is happening. We tend to react to what is going on rather than to take a minute, seek God’s voice, and respond to what is going on.
The things that overwhelm us, the things that burden us, can become glued to us by our fear. Then our fear pushes us to seek control over the situation, to attempt to fix it or to find a way out. We focus on the problem instead of on Jesus. That focus on the problem can move us to work toward our desired outcome in the situation. We know how we want things to turn out, and we start working in our own power to try to push things in that direction. But God tells us to listen to Him, to turn to Him, to draw what we need from Him, and to rest in Him. It’s His choice that governs what happens in this situation, and it’s His power that makes it happen.
“The issue at hand is still to determine who or what is the source for the human soul. When Adam and Eve changed our source to the knowledge of good and evil, our primary and our only source of reality became our senses; and when our senses became our source of reality, knowledge and reason became our process. This, practically, put the god of this world in charge of how we learn and how we see. We live by evidence and reason, and Satan is in charge of evidence, primarily because he is in charge of our world. If self is our source, we will always tend toward empowering the wrong kingdom. A key issue in spiritual warfare, then, is not to let circumstances dictate which voice we will listen to. In the worst moments and in the best moments we must let God be our source and our way. We must use our will to choose His voice in every moment. We will win the war when, regardless of our circumstances, we allow God to be our source.”
Bob Hamp, Think Differently; Lead Differently
Whenever we are in a crisis, God’s voice will speak truth to us, and His truth ministers peace. We can’t always change the crisis we’re in. We can’t always bring it to a resolution, fix it, or get out of it, like we would want to; but if we walk through it with God, we can have perfect peace in the middle of it.
In the midst of a crisis, we need to be able to listen to God to know: what the truth is/what’s really going on here, what weapons of warfare should we use, and how does God expect us to walk this out in our lives. If we rely on our self, we may misread the situation and take on responsibility for something that has nothing to do with us. We might choose the wrong spiritual weapon to use in this particular battle. There are a lot of spiritual weapons at our disposal: the Name of Jesus, the Word of God, the Blood of Jesus, Worship, Forgiveness, Speaking to our situation, Binding and Loosing, Obedience, and even Rest. Which one is the right one for right now? We won’t know if we don’t ask God and listen to what He says to us.
Let’s look at some Scriptural examples of people in the midst of a crisis and how they handled it.
Elijah (1 Kings 19: 1-18)
Elijah has just finished defeating the 450 prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel. He has challenged the false prophets to demonstrate Baal’s power, and he has called on God to display His power. Of course, Baal is proven to be powerless, and God shows up in a big way. You’d think that coming down from this moment of victory that Elijah would be quick to listen to God. You’d think that as a prophet, he’d be a bit more spiritually advanced than the rest of us, but here we find him at the beginning of 1 Kings 19 running for his life from the threats of Jezebel.
Jezebel has promised to kill Elijah, and instead of turning to God and listening to what God had to say about the whole matter, Elijah has listened to his five senses. The Bible says in verse 3 that “Elijah was afraid.” In some translations it says, “Elijah saw.” Elijah looked at his circumstances in the natural. Here was Jezebel, the queen. She had an immense amount of power as far as the natural realm was concerned. She was known for killing off prophets, and now her sights are set on Elijah. It was only natural that Elijah might feel intimidated and afraid. It isn’t until Elijah stops running, completely exhausted, that he prays to God.
God sends an angel to provide rest and refreshment and resources to Elijah in his time of need, and then God does something a bit strange. He sends a mighty wind, but He is not in the wind. Then He sends an earthquake, but He is not in the earthquake. Then He sends a fire, but He is not in the fire. Finally, Elijah hears a gentle whisper and knows that that is the presence of the Lord. You see when we are in the middle of a crisis, the natural world is very, very loud. The natural world is a world that shouts at us and tries to get our attention, but God’s voice requires us to be quiet. We can’t hear God’s voice with our physical ears. We have to hear it with our spiritual ears. We can’t always recognize God’s voice or Satan’s voice. It takes practice to learn the difference. We’ll get there, but most of us are still in the process of learning to recognize God’s voice.
Once Elijah is ready to hear God’s voice, God tells him that he has no reason to fear. He is not alone. God has 7,000 others who are faithful. You see God was not shaken by Jezebel. The truth of the situation was that God saw everything that was going on and had a plan to defeat Jezebel. Our crisis is never a crisis to God. But Elijah didn’t listen to God in his crisis. He relied on his own interpretation of what was going on, and a lot of the time this is what we do as well.
David and Saul
First Samuel contains the stories of Saul and David. Saul hated David and often tried to kill him. David was on the run a lot. Even after he became king, David had his moments where he had to flee for his life, as in the situation with his son Absalom trying to take over the throne. When we look at the book of Psalms, we see that a lot of the psalms were written during these periods of fleeing for his life. David wrote Psalm 57 on one such occasion. When we read this psalm, we see that David did not react to the circumstances around him. Instead, he sought the Lord. He asked the Lord for help.
The Bible tells us that David was a man after God’s own heart. No, he didn’t always get it right, but in the midst of crisis, David ran to God. He listened to God’s voice. He looked for God’s truth, and he obeyed what God told him to do. That’s how God wants us to respond when we are facing a crisis. He wants us to turn to Him and seek His resources and His help in the situation. He is our source, and we honor Him when we seek Him out first rather than trying to rely on ourselves.
Possible Responses
God answers us with guidance and direction. God wants to speak truth to us. He wants to give us guidance and direction. He has a plan for us. He knows exactly what we need to do in order to walk through the crisis that we’re facing. God is an expert communicator. When we go to Him, He will answer us. The best possible response when we seek God is that God answers us immediately and tells us what to do. When that happens, we need to obey whatever it is that God tells us to do.
Sometimes when we ask God for guidance, we may hear a voice of accusation. We may hear a voice that accuses us, that wants us to accuse others, or that accuses God. Accusations are always the voice of the enemy. He is the accuser of the brethren and the accuser of God. If you hear accusations when you pray, they are not the voice of God. Reject them.
God is silent. Sometimes when we seek God out in the midst of crisis it feels like God is silent. We don’t get an immediate word about what is going on or what we should do. This can happen for a couple of reasons:
- We are asking the wrong question. We might go to God and ask things like, “Why is this happening to me?” or “Why aren’t you helping me?” or “Why aren’t you doing something?” etc. These questions blame God for what is going on in our life. God isn’t offended by our questions. He isn’t even offended that we are blaming Him, but if we’re blaming God, we probably aren’t in the right mindset to be open and receptive to hearing truth from God. God isn’t going to answer us if we aren’t receptive to hearing what He has to say.
- This might be something God has already spoken to us about. Sometimes we encounter a situation where God has already spoken to us. It may be a crisis that is similar to a crisis we’ve gone through before where God already has given us direction on what to do. It may be a situation where God’s Word has spoken directly to our situation and tells us what to do. When we ask God about our situation and we are met with silence, we need to trust the truth of what we already know about who we are (our identity) in Christ, who God is, and what the Bible says about God. Sometimes in the silence, God is just asking us to stand on the truth we already know in order to get through.
ACTIVATION
Are you in the midst of crisis right now? Maybe a crisis beyond the COVID-19 pandemic? Here are some questions you can ask God as you seek to walk it out God’s way:
- God, are there things in this crisis that we have believed that are actually lies?
- Are there lies we are listening to and partnering with that we might be unaware of?
- Will you show us what those lies are and where we’ve come into agreement with them?
- (If this crisis involves a relationship) God, is there someone that I need to forgive?
- Lord, please show us where we have made inner vows or decisions about how to respond to things that go against your way of doing it.
As God reveals to you the lies you’ve come into agreement with or the vows you’ve made or responses you’ve used that are contrary to what He wants you to do, repent for them. Repent for partnering with the enemy’s lies and for taking control of things yourself. Renounce it and break agreement with it.
- God, what is your truth here about who I am, what you have for me, and what you see?
- How would you have me walk through this situation?
Father, we declare over our lives your authority, your Name, and your dominion. We surrender our lives completely to you. We want you to fully walk out who you Are in our lives every day. We want to fully walk out who you created us to be every day. Thank you, Father, for your direction, your guidance, and your provision. Thank you for your Truth. You are our source. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.
A Beautiful Mess 