As they began to sing and praise, the Lord set ambushes against the men of Ammon and Moab and Mount Seir who were invading Judah, and they were defeated. – 2 Chronicles 20:22

Today’s Scripture Reading (October 20, 2013): 2 Chronicles 20

Swedish football manager Sven Eriksson once commented that “the greatest barrier to success is the fear of failure.” It is one of the guiding rules of sports – fear will stop you from winning. A couple of weeks ago I sat down to watch a young professional hockey team in the midst of a rebuilding process play a game. The team that they were playing were much more experienced, and the names of the players they were playing were well known. On that night, very few people would have even recognized more than a handful of the names playing for the rebuilding team. And the commentator at the beginning of the game made a comment concerning the way that the younger team had to play against the older team. The comment was that if the younger team respected the older team, they would lose. What he was saying is that if this team of kids comes out and is in awe of being on the same ice with their hockey heroes, if they recognize the talent, if there first concern is that we need to make sure that we don’t make any mistakes – if they fear the ability of the players that they are playing against, the game is over before the first puck is dropped. Fear stops us from succeeding.

But the fear that stops us the quickest is the fear of failure. When we are afraid that we are going to fail, we stop trying. We simply give up. Because of the fear of failure we never venture out beyond the walls that we have built around us. It is one of the biggest problems of the contemporary church. The people who are in love with Jesus inside the church are afraid of the world that surrounds the outside walls of the church. And because we are afraid, we push back, we attack the world and try to destroy it – rather than being willing to pray to the God that we say that we love and watch what God wants to do in the world. And fear also stops us from dreaming about how we could be part of the process.

Three kingdoms gathered outside of Jerusalem ready to take down the capital city of Judah. The king looked out and saw the armies gather and he had no confidence in his armies, but great confidence in his God. And so he gathered the people together and they began to simply praise God. They apparently made no plans for the defense of the city; they made no plans to attack the enemy, they simply had a church service. The band got up and started to play and the people of the city began to sing. We are not talking about a crowd at a game singing “na-na-na-na, Hey, Goodbye.” They were singing “Give thanks to the Lord, for his love endures forever.”

What I find incredible about this story is the first words of our highlighted verse, as the people began to sing – God began to move. Too often we seem to want God to move and then we will cheer him on. If God would give us the money, then we would use it to do incredible things – but the reality that this story highlights is that we have that in reverse – if we praise, if we commit to a vision of God, then God will move.

I have no idea what happened in the confusion that was evident outside of the walls of the city. But the Bible says that God moved as his people praised. Maybe the next great move of God is simply on hold as God is waiting for us to praise. And the only thing that is holding God back right now is that his people are afraid to praise (and afraid to do what God has asked them to do) because we are afraid that we might fail.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: 2 Chronicles 21

Note: The VantagePoint Community Church (Edmonton) message "Inheriting the Eternal" from the series "Fall In ..." is now available on the VantagePoint Website. You can find it here.