Your Own Understanding — Warrior+Priest

Plenty of commands and directives in the Scriptures go against what we could rightfully call conventional wisdom, the spirit of the age, or the zeitgeist. And try as we might, churches and the people who attend them are subject to the pressures of societal conformity. We all carry certain perspectives and biases with us along on our walks with God. Some are neutral or benign. But some, perhaps most, are the very things the Holy Spirit is seeking to transform within us in order to shape us into the children of God we have been called to be.

You can always tell when someone has come up against a command that doesn’t sit right with them by the way they interact with it. It is common in our day to hear responses to biblical commands such as, “Well, that’s cultural and doesn’t apply to us anymore,” or “I just can’t believe that a God of love would say such a thing,” or “What God’s really interested in is the spirit of the command, not the letter of the law.”

What’s worse is when people attempt to make the command not just archaic or culturally irrelevant, but ridiculous: “Do you *really* believe that God seriously cares about this?!?” The indignation flows from the expectation that God’s commands would never require a person to step outside the bounds of what society deems mainstream, politically correct or socially acceptable.

But the truth is that God is not just our savior and father, but our king. And the fact that He is both our savior and father does nothing to negate the fact that He is our king. Despite what some say, there is such a thing as Christian duty (Matthew 28:20; John 14:15) and it is a duty that flows not just from our position as the subjects of the one true king of all reality, but also from our rightful love for Him. Obedience is the response of a heart that both rightly understands its place and properly loves God.

It’s important to remember two things when wrestling with obedience to commands we do not like or understand. First, God did not seek our approval or comprehension when He issued His directives. It’s not up to us what’s right and what’s wrong. It doesn’t matter at all whether or not we understand why we’ve been directed to do (or not do) certain things. God is eternal and perfectly holy, we are temporal and stained with sin. *Not* understanding all that God is or does ought to be the expectation, not a surprise.

And secondly, we need to trust that the only reason God would issue a command in the first place is for our own benefit (Matthew 7:9-11; Proverbs 3:12). Whether or not we perceive why He wants us to do this or that is *not* the litmus test for whether or not we should obey it. “I just don’t get,” or “I don’t see how this could possibly be hurting anybody,” or “There’s no way this is a big enough deal for God to even care about,” might seem like perfectly rational responses. But the foolishness of God is wiser than men (I Corinthians 1:25), and the simple truth is that we are not capable of seeing or understanding all that is probably at stake with regards to God’s commands.

Proverbs 3:5 begins with the word “trust”. Trust is the active form of faith. It means to commit yourself to something without the luxury of total understanding. By acknowledging the Lord in all that we do, whether or not we understand it all, Proverbs 3:6 goes on to say that we can expect His guidance in our lives. But, catch it: we must trust Him in order to receive His direction. If we resist and insist on our own understanding or agreement before we’re willing to do what He says, we forfeit any expectation that He will guide us where we hope to go.

And do not misunderstand: there is a difference between truly wrestling with an idea or a command and building an entire framework of justification so that you can explain it away and not be bothered with obeying it. As with so many things, it is not struggle that should concern us, but capitulation.

So, try this thought experiment out with me: if the Lord appeared to you and commanded you to never again wear blue t-shirts, would that command be enough or would you hesitate or resist because it didn’t make sense? Are God’s commands enough for you? Do you trust that He has your best interests at heart? Or do you think you know better than God because your perception and understanding of how a thing works means more to you than what God has to say?

Proverbs 3:5. “Do not lean on your own understanding.”