This is part of my year-long series exploring human-centered alternatives to the spiritual promises in Oswald Chambers’ classic devotional My Utmost for His Highest. Today’s entry, “Something More about His Ways,” promises that when believers obey God’s call to leave, “the Lord himself ministers to those you leave behind,” claiming that God “comes where he commands us to leave” and “works where he sends us to wait,” with divine instruction and power coming to those who trust God with the consequences of obedience.
Here’s what trusting that God ministers to those left behind and works where He sends us to wait actually delivered:
“When you obey and go, trusting God with the consequences, the Lord himself ministers to those you leave behind,” Pastor Thompson declared with spiritual certainty. “He comes where he commands us to leave. Don’t let duty compete with God’s commands. Wait on God where He sends you, and He will work. He wants to turn your waiting into transformation.”
Michael felt called to missionary work in Central America, leaving behind his aging parents who needed increasing care and his wife who was struggling with depression. The promise that God would minister to his family while he waited on divine timing seemed like the spiritual assurance he needed to follow what he believed was God’s clear calling despite family concerns.
Michael desperately wanted to believe that divine obedience would trigger God’s care for those he left behind. Instead of developing practical support systems for his parents, ensuring his wife had professional mental health care, or considering how to serve God while maintaining family responsibilities, he trusted that obeying the call to leave would result in divine ministry to his loved ones through supernatural means that would exceed human care.
For months, Michael prepared for overseas ministry while his parents’ health declined and his wife’s depression worsened, believing that his obedience to God’s calling would activate divine intervention for his family’s needs. When concerned friends suggested delaying his departure until better support systems were in place, he declined, convinced that staying would prevent God from ministering to his family and that waiting sulkily on timing showed lack of faith in divine working.
But the promised divine ministry to those left behind was family abandonment disguised as spiritual obedience.
Michael’s attempts to trust God with the consequences of leaving created additional family crisis on top of existing health and mental health challenges. The divine ministry that God was supposed to provide to those left behind remained absent while his parents struggled without adequate support and his wife’s depression deepened in isolation. The divine working that waiting on God was supposed to produce never materialized when his family needed practical care and presence most.
Meanwhile, Michael’s neighbor David approached his own sense of calling to overseas service with comprehensive family care planning and practical support systems. When David felt drawn to international work, he delayed his departure until his parents had professional care coordination, his wife had established mental health treatment, and extended family support networks were in place to provide ongoing practical assistance.
David didn’t trust God to minister to those left behind but treated family responsibilities as requiring human planning and professional care systems before pursuing personal calling. His service came through gradual transition planning, family care coordination, and eventually pursuing international work only after ensuring comprehensive support systems rather than trusting that divine obedience would trigger supernatural ministry to abandoned family members.
When Michael finally returned to address his family’s deteriorating situation, he discovered that healthy family care required understanding practical support systems and professional services rather than trusting that God would minister to those left behind through spiritual obedience.
Where was the divine ministry to those left behind that obedience was supposed to activate? Where was God working in the waiting and coming where He commanded departure to care for abandoned family members?
The care that actually helped came through accepting the necessity of human support systems and focusing on evidence-based family care planning, not through believing that spiritual obedience would trigger divine ministry to those left without practical support. The silence where God was supposed to be ministering revealed the truth: there was no divine working that replaced human responsibility for family care through supernatural intervention.
Only aging parents and mental health challenges that required professional understanding and practical support systems to address successfully while pursuing personal calling responsibly.
Reflection Question: When has practical family care planning and professional support systems been more effective than trusting that God ministers to those left behind in spiritual obedience?
This story is part of my upcoming book “The Undevoted: Daily Departures from Divine Dependence,” which offers 365 human-centered alternatives to the spiritual certainties in Chambers’ devotional. Each day explores how reason, community, and human resilience can address life’s challenges without requiring divine intervention.
God or Delusion? 