When you too need to move on | By: J.O. Lawal | Date: November 13, 2024 | Series: Youth for Jesus | Number: Vol. 7, No. 27

“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing. Look, your house is left to you desolate. For I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.'” (Matt 23:37-39NIV)

That was the lamentation of our Lord Jesus over the people of Jerusalem just before He went to the cross. And one main thing we see from what He said about these people is that He was unable to help them experience a fulfilment of God’s purpose for them. Yes, He wanted to help them. He had the ability to help them. But they were just unwilling to be helped. So, He had to leave their house to them desolate. He had to move on. What a shame!

Now if the Lord Jesus, who was full of God’s grace and truth, couldn’t just help certain people to witness the goodness of God and be saved, we must also know that there are people we cannot help, regardless of how hard we try. Yes, it is important that we always endeavour to do for others all that God lays on our hearts and also gives us the grace to do for them. That way, we can maintain a clean and clear conscience before Him that we have done our own bit for them.

However, we must also know when no further effort we make to help some people will amount to anything. And where that is the case, we need to stop wasting the time, energy and resources God has given to us on such people and move on. Otherwise, whatever harm or frustration that comes to us as a result of it will be self-inflicted.

As we see in the bible, after God had rejected Saul, Samuel did not stop mourning for him. But he did not go to visit him. Why did he not go to visit him? It was because he knew that the man had passed the point of no return. In other words, he had gone beyond where any help he offered him would work. So, he would not visit him. Yet he wouldn’t also stop mourning for him. (Cf. 1Sam 15:34-35)

Why did Samuel continue to mourn for this man? It was because he was the one that ordained him as king. Yes, he was the one that told everybody that the man was God’s chosen and anointed one. How, then, would he face these same people again and tell them that God had changed His mind about him? Would they not even think that he probably did not get it right in the first place?

But then, it was not Samuel’s fault that Saul turned out bad. It was not his fault that the man became unfaithful to God. And it was not his fault that no attempt he made to set him right worked. Yet he kept on blaming himself for him and mourning over his spiritual death. So, God had to step in at some time and say to him, “How long will you mourn for Saul, since I have rejected him as king over Israel? Fill your horn with oil and be on your way; I am sending you to Jesse of Bethlehem. I have chosen one of his sons to be king.”” (1Sam 16:1NIV)

Did you see that? God stopped Samuel from worrying about Saul and praying for him. Why? All that he was doing for him was an effort in futility. It wouldn’t change anything about Saul, neither would it change God’s mind about him. God had already moved on. He had already chosen another man in place of Saul. So, it was only wise of Samuel too to move on. And that was exactly what God told him to do.

Now do you know that God also told Jeremiah more than once not to pray for the people of Judah anymore? Why? The reason was that He was not going to answer him. That means his prayers for them would not help or save them from what was coming for them. If Jeremiah, then, continued to pray to God for them, would he not just be wasting his energy and time? He would. (Cf. Jer 7:16 & 11:14)

In like manner, there are times that God will expect us too to just let some people be and move on with our lives. And that is because there is nothing we do for them at such times, however good or honourable it may be, that will help them change their ways or that will change God’s mind about them. God has already moved on, as far as their matters are concerned. So, we too should move on.

How, then, do we know when we need to do this in our dealings with others? It is by divine revelations. What I mean is that it is not in our place to just say, “I am done helping you or praying for you,” to anyone. Rather, it is for God to determine. In other words, if God has given us the responsibility of taking care of someone or supporting them, whether through our prayers, resources or the word of God, we can’t just wake up on morning and say that we are done with them, even if the person is terribly messing up. Instead, we must first go back to God who made that person our responsibility and report to Him. Then He will tell us what to do.

Remember that both Moses and Elijah, at some point during their lifetimes, try to abandon their duties to the Israelites because of the stiffness of the neck of the people. But God literally said to both of them, “No, you can’t do that. You have to finish what you started.” And they both went on to finish what they had started. (Cf. Num 11; 1Kings 19)

So, don’t use what I am sharing with you here as your excuse for abandoning your prayer duties to anyone or for turning away from giving them whatever help God has put you in the position to give them. That will be a sin against God (1Sam 12:23). But if God Himself has already shown you that you have no further help or assistance to give to someone to save them or lift them up, you had better move on and stop wasting your time on them.

Cheers!

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