Do Nothing

  On occasion you will hear on a big issue someone exclaim "Doing nothing is not an option". But it is.  Doing nothing is an option. The proper way to express the idea might be “doing nothing is not an acceptable option” or doing nothing is not a proper option.

 But is that true? Could doing nothing be not only an option but perhaps the best option?

  Consider the parable of the prodigal son.

And He said, "A man had two sons.  "The younger of them said to his father, 'Father, give me the share of the estate that falls to me.' So he divided his wealth between them.  "And not many days later, the younger son gathered everything together and went on a journey into a distant country, and there he squandered his estate with loose living.

Luke 15:11-13 

  Here the father has a choice. He could refuse the request. He could punish the ingrate son. He could lock him in his room. It's not as if the father couldn’t see what is coming. He knew the son was being foolish. He knew what life was like in the distant country. He couldn’t let his son go off. It would be a tad amount to letting him die. He has to do something!

  But he doesn’t. He lets him go. He waits ready for him to return but he doesn’t go after him and drags him back kicking and screaming. He lets his choices come to their natural conclusion. Even with his other son, you do remember it starts off by telling us he has two sons, He doesn’t demand his son return to the banquet. He pleads, he reasons but yet he doesn’t do anything to make him come in. Threat him to take away his inheritance, tell the servant to drag him back inside or anything else. It is his choice. Just like it was his brother’s choice to leave.

  

Ok, I’ll agree he didn’t do absolutely nothing for his sons.  But he still did less than we might think we have to do.  We can work to help people make better choices. We can show them the error in loose living and hard hearts. But in the end, we can do it for them. If we try to save them from the consequence all we do is miss the chance that the may come to their senses and realize that it isn’t the way. All we can do is instruct and be an example. We can wait for them to come home and rejoice when they do.

 Sometimes the hardest thing to do is nothing.