Do you understand? Do you need to?

As I reflect back on the past year, there are events that I have yet to figure out as to how they fit into God’s plan and His purpose.  I don’t always understand God’s ways; but I heard someone say once, “You can have God or you can have understanding.  You can’t have both.”  Is that true?

Solomon writes in a verse very familiar to most of us, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.  In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will direct your paths.”  With all your heart goes beyond what most of us are willing to do.  As I noted in a previous blog, we “know” we should trust God, but to trust God with all our heart implies we will go beyond our own knowing, our own understanding, to a deeper level of acceptance and trust, or as one author puts it, to a “deep reliance on the Lord, a settled confidence in His care and faithfulness.”

In a book I often like to quote, “The Shack,” the main character is confronted not for his lack of understanding, but his lack of acceptance of God’s methods.  He is accused of judging God.  He is encouraged to, “Give up being His judge and know Papa (the nickname for God) for who He is.  Then you will be able to embrace His love in the midst of your pain, instead of pushing him away with your self-centered perception of how you think the universe should be.”  Ouch!

Maybe it isn’t so much that we need to give up trying to understand God and His methods.  That understanding is often available to us and what God desires for us.  However, we are reminded, “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts (Is. 55:9).”  What is truly needed is for us to learn to trust God’s ways.

“For I know the plans I have for you, plans for welfare (shalom, peace and plenty) and not for evil (calamity), to give you a future and a hope (Jer. 29:11).”

Have a blessed New Year!  Godspeed, Phil