2 Chronicles 20 begins with a daunting picture. Several nations, the Bible calls them a “vast multitude”, joined together to fight against Judah. King Jehoshaphat was afraid. Yet in that fear, he didn’t panic. He didn’t begin to strategize with the leaders of the land. He didn’t turn to the corrupt king of Israel for help. He didn’t try to negotiate with the evil kings that were coming against him. He didn’t grumble and complain or give up. The Bible says he “resolved to seek the Lord”. (vs. 3,12)

“Lord, I don’t know what to do.”  

How many of us have spoken these words with a level of exasperation in the past few weeks? In most homes, life is looking a bit different and while there may be many gifts found in our new reality, let’s be real, there is a reason for the saying “absence makes the heart grow fonder”! I don’t know about you, but I have been grieved at some of my responses and reactions to my family’s lives splashing up against mine in a “close to home” kind of way. Maybe you’ve uttered the words, “Lord, I don’t know what to do” as you stand at a kitchen table filled with school books, computers, papers and your children, wondering how you are going to get through another day of unplanned homeschooling. Or it may be that your parenting seems to be falling on deaf ears; or you are realizing, for the first time, just how hard-hearted one of your kids really is and you are not sure how to shepherd a heart that doesn’t want shepherding.   

“Lord, I don’t know what to do.”  

Maybe you have said these words after another argument with your husband over something dumb, as you waved an accusatory finger of rightness while all the while, it was over little more than a difference of opinion…the very thing that makes you such a good team when you work together.

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