Just Do What You Want

And when he had come to the king, the king said to him, “Micaiah, shall we go to Ramoth-gilead to battle, or shall we refrain?” And he answered him, “Go up and triumph; the LORD will give it into the hand of the king.” But the king said to him, “How many times shall I make you swear that you speak to me nothing but the truth in the name of the LORD?” 1 Kings 22:15-16

After I had my knee replaced, I was anxious to get back to the gym. For years, my knee had been in decline, and for several months leading up to surgery, I couldn’t do the daily workout. So, once I got my knee fixed, even though I had postoperative pain, I was continually trying to do more. In clinic, I happen to work just down the hall from the orthopedic team who replaced my knee, so I’m sure they got tired me asking if I could squat, lunge, do box jumps, or run. Finally, at one of my postoperative appointments, after my 17^th question about what I could do, my surgeon finally sighed and said, Just do whatever you want.

I took that as a blanket permission statement, applicable to everything at the gym. I went home and told my wife that the surgeon had given me the green light for all things CrossFit. She asked exactly what the surgeon said, and I told her. She saw through my permissive version of his statement to see his sarcastic version. He didn’t really mean that he thought I should try squatting 400 pounds. He just recognized that I was going to do whatever I wanted, no matter what he said. So, in exasperation, he finally threw his hands up, surrendering a fight he wasn’t going to win.

This is the tone I imagine Micaiah taking in today’s passage. In the story, King Ahab and King Jehoshaphat conspired to attack Syria and wanted God’s blessing. So, they inquired of King Ahab’s 400 sketchy prophets who unanimously confirmed that God was on their side. Wanting a second opinion, King Jehoshapat sent for the always-authentic prophet Micaiah. Do whatever you want. God is on your side (my paraphrase). Micaiah knew God wasn’t on Ahab’s side, but he also knew Ahab was going to do whatever Ahab wanted and so, he used sarcasm as ridicule.

This is a bad place to be. When someone says, Just do whatever you want, it’s because that’s how I’ve been living, doing whatever I wanted, not listening to anyone. It may be amusing when it comes to a knee replacement, but, as Ahab found out, life decisions can quickly become life and death decisions. When it comes to my recovery, doing whatever I want is profoundly unhealthy. So, today, and every day, I must seek to do, not what I want, but what God wants. My way is death. God’s way is life. Doing whatever I want, just doesn’t take me where I truly want to go.