Should I stay or should I go? Whenever I hear these words, the ever so catchy song by The Clash always pops into my head. But outside of those words that everyone knows, they are followed up with, “If I go there will be trouble, and if I stay there will be double. So come on and let me know…” Those words can speak so true to us, we often times just look at the fact that if we go there will be trouble, but don’t always think about the truth that staying could cause even more. It can work both ways. Leaving could also cause double the trouble we are currently in. It may seem like the easy way out in the short term, but if it is not where you are called to be, there will surely be more difficulty as you make that decision. The Bible lays out many times where these types of decisions were made and, over and over again, we see where God is telling people that he will bring them up again as he will be with them.
“I am God, the God of your father. Do not be afraid to go down to Egypt, for there I will make you into a great nation. I myself will go down with you to Egypt, and I will also bring you up again and Joseph’s hand shall close your eyes.”
— Genesis 46:3–4
As God called Jacob to go into Egypt to be with Joseph, one of the great things Jacob did during this journey was to stop and make sacrifices to God in the middle of his journey. He stopped, not only to make those sacrifices, but to put his emotions aside and listen to what God had to say about his decision. Jacob learned through this time that God called him to go to Egypt, because God would be going with him and God would raise him up again through his obedience to leave what they had known and follow him.
One of the things that we struggle with is the idea that we, as humans, are able to just bear down and make decisions on our own about whether or not we should stay or go in whatever it is that we are doing. We often don’t take the time, or any time at all, to ask God what it is that he wants for us. As we learned from week four of this current series, setting our eyes on Jesus won’t just get us to the point of starting or stopping something that we know we should or shouldn’t be doing. Setting our eyes on Jesus will help us to make the right decisions on whether we should stay or go. Leaving our comfort zone is something that can be so very difficult for so many of us. We love the people we work with, or the house we live in, so why in the world would we leave? The only answer to that is that it is through our obedience to what God is calling us to do. It may be uncomfortable, but more often than not, it is through those times, whether it be staying where you are, or moving onto a new journey, that we find God right smack in the middle of it all, making it all OK.
Focus your eyes on God when you are in the middle of a “Should I stay or should I go now” moment. Take a step back, put thought and prayer into what God wants for you in this situation and follow his lead. You may not feel that your decision is the easiest one to make, but with God in control, he tells us that we can trust him with our burdens.
“For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
— Matthew 11:30
His burden is light. Trust him with this decision, and he will bring you up again, whether you stay or go.