Obedience doesn’t have to make sense to you – only to God. You won’t grow much as a Christian if you never have any obstacles to overcome.
Walking with God brings both mountaintop and valley experiences. The valley experiences are the ones that teach you the most, but they are generally the hardest to endure.
And you won’t grow much as a believer in Christ if you never encounter obstacles or problems that must be overcome.
If life is always easy, you will grow complacent.
Being a Christian for most of my life, I knew that God expected me to read the Bible and obey what it says. But I hesitated to willingly walk out on a limb into the unknown to obey Him.
Over the years, I learned more about the character of God and grew closer to Him. I realized that He expected me to obey whether others understood or whether they didn’t. God may tell you what He wants you to do, but not tell those around you.
This happened many times in the Bible. And that’s the way God works even today. He certainly can reveal His plan to those around you, but He may choose not to.
He can see the big picture and has a plan in place to work everything out. And remember, obedience doesn’t have to make sense to you. Just follow God’s plan and learn to trust Him.
But since we can’t see things the way God does, it’s easy to think that His plan doesn’t make much sense. After all, we are looking at His heavenly plan through our earthly eyes. And if we never get beyond that, nothing will make sense that He tells us to do.
God purposefully looks for those who can do what He asks ONLY with His help. That way He gets the glory for what is accomplished, and man can’t take the credit in any way.
I Corinthians 3: 19 For this world’s wisdom is foolishness (absurdity and stupidity) with God, for it is written, He lays hold of the wise in their [own] craftiness. And again, the Lord knows the thoughts and reasonings of the [humanly] wise and recognizes how futile they are. AMP
I Corinthians 1: 27 – 29 27. For God selected (deliberately chose) what in the world is foolish to put the wise to shame, and what the world calls weak to put the strong to shame. 28. And God also selected (deliberately chose) what in the world is lowborn and insignificant and branded and treated with contempt, even the things that are nothing, that He might depose and bring to nothing the things that are, 29. so that no mortal man should [have pretense for glorying and] boast in the presence of God. AMP
According to the above verses, even the smartest people on earth don’t know how God thinks.
Man wants to give credit only to those who are successful in business, have great college degrees, are worth millions, etc. Man thinks these people are the only ones who could ever be qualified as a leader.
But God thinks the greatest person is one who will never be able to do the job without His help and direction. He chooses someone whom the world would never choose. And He chooses them because they have a different belief system than the world. The values of the world don’t rule them.
Here are two examples from the Bible where God promised victory, but in a way that no human would ever think about.
JOSHUA AND JERICHO
When God told Joshua that He would help Him win the victory over Jericho, it happened in a radical way.
In verse 2 God told Joshua that He had given Jericho to them along with its king and troops. Now all he had to do was follow the instructions God gave.
Here are his instructions from God in verses 3 – 5 from The Message Bible:
- March around the city with all your soldiers.
- Circle the city once and repeat this for 6 days.
- Have 7 priests carry 7 ram’s horn trumpets in front of the Chest. (The Chest was the Ark of the Covenant.)
- On the 7th day march around the city 7 times with the priests blowing away on the trumpets.
- And then, a long blast on the ram’s horn – when you hear that, all the people are to shout at the top of their lungs. The city wall will collapse at once;
- Then all the people are to enter, every man straight on in.
Who would think God would choose to fight a battle with the singers leading the soldiers as they walked around a city? But obedience doesn’t have to make sense to you – only to God.
MOSES AND THE RED SEA
The Israelites had left Egypt and had started their trek into the wilderness when they came upon the Red Sea. How would so many people and animals be able to cross it? So God came to Moses with a plan.
The path they had taken hadn’t caught God by surprise at all. In fact, He had led the Israelites there in order to reveal to them His Glory and show them that He would always take care of them if they would follow Him and put Him first in their lives.
Exodus 14: 1 – 4 God spoke to Moses: Tell the Israelites to turn around and make camp at Pi Hahiroth, between Migdol and the sea. Camp on the shore of the sea opposite Baal Zephon. Pharaoh will think, ‘The Israelites are lost; they’re confused. The wilderness has closed in on them.’ Then I’ll make Pharaoh’s heart stubborn again and he’ll chase after them. And I’ll use Pharaoh and his army to put my Glory on display. Then the Egyptians will realize that I am God.
So… God had already thought out this plan. He wanted to show BOTH the Israelites AND Egyptians that He was the ONE AND ONLY TRUE GOD. He had a two-fold purpose for doing things in the way He did.
Because obedience doesn’t have to make sense to you – only to God.
Joshua and Moses were ordinary people just like you and me. But their defining moments were when they decided to take God at His Word. His plan probably didn’t make sense to their physical mind, but they chose to follow it.
The next time you are going through something you don’t understand, ask God to allow you to look at the person or circumstance from His perspective. It will make all the difference to look at things from His heavenly view rather than your earthly one.
It is only then that feeding your fleshly self is much less important than feasting on the wonderful mercies and grace of God.
Give your problems, trials, struggles, and everyday life to God and let Him work it out according to His plan.
