Trust or Understand

We have a choice to trust or understand.

Lately, I've been thinking about the concept of trusting God without having to know everything.

After all, isn't that what trust is? We aren't able to trust God (or anyone) if we have complete understanding simply because that wouldn't be trust.

I think of Abraham, the friend of God. He lived before the Law was given, so there were no Scriptures about God yet. I believe that during this time, people learned to know God through hearing about Him from their ancestors. But all this to say that Abraham had a relationship with God without a "textbook".

God told him to leave his father's house and go to a land that he was unfamiliar with, and he went. Later, God told him to sacrifice his promised child Isaac, and he did.

What faith. What obedience. What trust!

It was simple. Abraham heard the word of the Lord, and he obeyed His voice.

He didn't have to know all the answers. He didn't have to reason through his intellect of how things would work. He didn't have to understand to believe God and obey His direction.

We have a choice to trust in the Lord with all our heart AND in doing so we will have to lay down our need to understand.

But I think that when we follow Abraham's pattern of trusting God blindly, we will actually gain more understanding of who God is.

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.” (Proverbs 3:5-6)

Many of us seek wisdom and understanding, but I'd propose that these will be given to us as we put our own human reasoning on the altar. Like a little child, we can simply believe in our Father's kind intentions without having to know all the details and comprehend all the logistics.