"Nothing's working. Now what?"

There was a time when our family was not only between ministries, we were between everything else - between an income, a home and a future. For reasons beyond our control, we were without a church and living in borrowed quarters. One evening when things seemed the bleakest, I gathered our children around me and said to them, "You are being given a rare opportunity. You get to see what can happen when all you have to depend on is the Lord." God brought us through that particular period in a most gracious way, and we found ourselves on the mission field for the next six years. Sure enough, God did not fail.
As the years have passed and our children have grown, married and gone into their own ministries, there have been times when that conversation has returned. Usually, it has happened when one of our adult children has called to say, "Dad, nothing's working. Now what?" They have found themselves in some predicament in their ministry or some life situation where every solution they have tried has failed. Most of all, God has not worked, or so it seems, so now they are calling Dad. They are not calling to complain, but to find answers. Dad is still the pastor. It is in those precious situations that this dad has been able to assure the kids once again that they are being given a rare opportunity. God still delights to make a point to us, that when we have nothing else on which to depend, He is sufficient. It's a tough but necessary lesson. Someday our kids will have kids under their own roof, and there will be more phone calls: "Dad, nothing's working. Now what?" That is the moment when our own children can pass on what they have learned in the crucible of their own experience, that when "nothing's working," God is working most of all. He doesn't ask or expect us to make sense of what He is doing. He asks only that we trust Him. I know this may seem like a platitude to some people, but the answer to the question is actually very simple. God is working, whether we see Him or not. And if we know that God is working, we know He will take care of the "Now what?". The answer He provides may not be what we expect - that is usually the case - but we know He will always see us through.