Proverbs 3:5 says "Trust in the Lord with all of your heart and lean not on your own understanding."
A question: Why is it that one of the most famous and beloved passages in all of scripture is rarely followed?
You may think that to be an inflamatory question, but I ask it with the most sincere intrigue. What I intend is for each of us to consider that "our own understanding" is usually the measuring stick for before, during and after any crisis or difficult situation we face. If the solution or outcome "makes sense" to our finite minds, we often say, "That must be from God."
But consider Joshua's encounter with God himself in Joshua 5 and 6. Here the Lord tells him to march around Jericho for 7 days, and on the final day, to have the people shout as loud as they can, and Jericho's walls would come tumbling down. However, the Bible leaves out the fact that this wall is 33 feet thick! Can you imagine being among God's people? When Joshua told you what the Lord said, would you not wonder aloud about his sanity?
Those of you who know the story know that God's people did exactly as God required, and the walls fell flat! But personally, I often wonder what God's people might do if a similar directive were given to his people today. Oh, how many ques-tions we would have for Joshua and the Lord.
Church, it's easy to make the statement, "God DID weird stuff." But is it still true that God DOES weird stuff?
Perhaps you don't have a story that compares with the walls of Jericho crashing down, but I imagine you have a story or two about a time when God's answers to your problems didn't make sense. Sometimes you followed Him, other times not. Let me encourage you once again: "Trust in the Lord with all of your heart and lean NOT on your own understanding."
See you Sunday!
I liked your comments on the website about how we often say, "That must be from God," when things make sense to us, but not when they don't.
ReplyDeleteI had an anthropology teacher back in 1978 who was an atheist. A Christian class-mate and I took to arguing with him. (I know, not so cool.) One day, while he was showing us sites of ancient cities in the middle east, and explaining that they were built one on top of the other, he turned a page and there was Jericho. Apparently one of archeologist's most excavated (and presumed to be the oldest) cities. And without any reference to the biblical story, he pointed out that all the different scientists who studied the site believed the city walls collapsed completely and quickly. We said something about the biblical story and as I recall he never argued with us again. We didn't pull any fantastic apologetics, but it appeared he was opening up some new possibilities in his thinking. At least that's how I remember it so long ago.
Bob Pool