Leaving it up to God

"Leave it up to God"—I have heard that phrase from church folk frequently over the years. The problem with it is that you cannot find a Bible verse that expresses the same sentiment, which means it is an unscriptural notion of man. The idea seems to have two basic functions, (a) it is used by people who don't know the Lord's will, and therefore don't know what else to do, and (b) as a platitude to offer comfort to others when someone doesn't know what else to say. In both instances, the will of the Lord is not known by the speaker, so when God acts, they still won't know if "it" was really God. Occasionally there is a (c) when the speaker tries to control the spoken-to by getting them to back off.

It's interesting, isn't it, how a and b are the results of the speaker's spiritual laziness, and c is the speaker's attempt to encourage spiritual laziness in someone else!

"Oh, I know that's in the Bible somewhere!" comes the retort. "We need to leave it up to God."

Then show me chapter and verse. Meanwhile, I will show you why some of the "Near Misses" don't count.

"casting all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you." 1 Peter 5:7 The only thing this verse says to leave to God is the worry.

"render to God the things that are God's." Matthew 22:21 and Mark 12:17  "Render" means to pay back what is due; it requires taking action. Far from shifting all your responsibility to God, this verse speaks of taking responsibility.

"Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God," Romans 12:19 It ought to be pretty clear that this verse is limited to revenge. You may leave your revenge up to God, but that is about all. Okay, your anxiety too. 

"Commit your way to the Lord, trust also in Him, and He shall bring it to pass." Psalm 37:5 Yes, except there is that pesky "trust also" part, and if you are anxious with worry and doubt, there is no trust going on.

In fact, if you take the time to run references, the Bible verses that do tell you to leave a specific item to the Lord all have a lot in common. The things that we are to "leave" to God turn out to be rather negative: anxiety, revenge, battles, worldly concerns, etc., and along with it, there is a command or admonition to take some counteraction in return. Verses that tell us to leave bitterness and wrath are followed by ones telling us to be forgiving and kind-hearted. Verses that say we can leave our care with God and be anxious for nothing immediately go on to say that we ought to then take up prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving. cf Philippians 4:6 

It turns out that there is quite a lot of WORK involved in "leaving" the outcomes up to God if we are going to follow the Bible in its entirety. After the leaving, we are then told to acknowledge, believe, hold fast, trust, and rely on God, and to guard our own hearts. When we leave behind "every weight and sin which clings so closely," we are then instructed to "run with endurance!" 

The truth is that you cannot legitimately leave up to God what He left up to you. God intended that you make choices and follow through. That's the Creator's design. Proof of this is found in Deuteronomy 11. When the Israelites were about to cross the Jordan to go in to possess the land which the LORD planned for them to possess, He put responsibility on them. He goes on in the following chapters to list these responsibilities, eventually summarizing in Deuteronomy 30:19, "I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. So choose life in order that you may live, you and your descendants."

In a future post, I'll look at some of those choices, but for now let's stay focused on the responsibility God put on the people as He gave them this charge. Back up to verse 11—

For this commandment which I command you today is not too difficult for you, nor is it out of reach.
Deuteronomy 30:11 

Just as the Lord made his will clearly known to the Israelites, He had also revealed His will to KatieLyn. It was easily understood. He placed it right in her heart. She did not need to go out and consider the opinions of anyone else. She is an adult; God treated her as an adult and told her directly; not her parents. 
God often tells parents things that pertain to the children they are responsible for. He sometimes tells intercessors things they need to know to pray effectively.  He rarely reveals things to people who are not seeking Him, or who are seeking with an errant or immoral motive. There are no hard and fast rules that God is bound to observe, but KatieLyn should not have become unsettled and panicked just because her mother had not heard from God. (The fact that Gwen was willing to give "full support" to a daughter who was terror-struck running away from God's plan for her shows me that Gwen did not know God's will in this matter. If she gave "full support" and did know KatieLyn was in rebellion, then it goes without saying, Gwen is a monster. A good mother could not give full support to her daughter if she knew her daughter was running from God.)

God placed a responsibility upon KatieLyn to know His voice, and to obey His voice. She had repeatedly given Joe assurances that she had heard God clearly, and that she knew marriage was an answer to prayer; she knew that this was God's plan for her life. She said that she feared failure. 

And then God left the next step up to her.  She knew His will, and He let her choose whether or not she would do it. She not only rejected Joe, she also rejected the Lord.  She not only ran away from Joe, she ran away from Jesus too.

The Lesson
"Leaving it up to God" can be dangerous because He is not going to force you into doing anything. He won't force you to accept salvation, He won't force you to go to heaven, He won't force you to keep His commandments, and He won't force KatieLyn to get married. He won't force His will on anyone. That would be devilish.