Jesus answered and said,
"You do not know what you ask." —Matthew 20:22
{CHAMBERS} “There are times in your spiritual life when there is
confusion[…]. It is not a matter of right and wrong, but a matter of God taking
you through a way that you temporarily do not understand. And it is only by
going through the spiritual confusion that you will come to the understanding
of what God wants for you. […] (see Luke 11:5-8). Jesus gave the
illustration here of a man who appears not to care for his friend. He was
saying, in effect, that is how the heavenly Father will appear to you at times.
You will think that He is an unkind friend, but remember— He is not. The time
will come when everything will be explained. […] (see Luke 11:11-13). Jesus said that
there are times when your Father will appear as if He were an unnatural father—
as if He were callous and indifferent— but remember, He is not. “ […] (see Luke 18:1-8). “When the Son of Man
comes, will He really find faith on the earth?” (Luke 18:8). Will He find the
kind of faith that counts on Him in spite of the confusion? Stand firm in
faith, believing that what Jesus said is true, although in the meantime you do
not understand what God is doing.”
{ELGIN} Understanding is not
a pre-condition for God’s expectation that we obey Him. There is something called Root-cause analysis
that is intended to ferret out the true source of a particular problem. One method is called the 5-Whys. No – not 5 Guys, 5-Whys. You keep asking why to every answer to why
until you get to the root cause. Perhaps
you remember the saying, “For the want of a nail a shoe was lost, for the want
of a shoe a horse was lost, for the want of a horse a king was lost, for the
want of a king a kingdom was lost.” The
root cause of losing the kingdom was the loss of a nail in the horse’s
shoe. Well, we ask “why” of God often as
a pre-condition for obeying Him. Have
your children ever challenged you as their parent with “Why”? “Because I said so!” was often my
answer. In a great respect that should
be sufficient with God. We understand
His nature. We understand that there are
things that we don’t know, we don’t know.
God sees from beginning to end.
Jesus asked the question (Matthew
7:9-11) ““Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or
if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are
evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your
Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!” Of course this had to do with praying to God,
but the expectation is the same. God
will do what is best for us and what will bring glory to Him as we obey
Him. It is critical that you know it is
God. If it is in His Word, His Word is
truth (John 17:17) You must be a Christian to know His voice (John 10:27) And that means your heart must be right, as a
result of submitting your life to the Spirit of God. Ignoring God and going your own way is not
good, in fact, it’s sin. (James 4:17) “Remember, it is sin to
know what you ought to do and then not do it.”
“Yes Lord, yes. I will trust you and obey. Yes Lord yes, to your will and to your
way. When your Spirit speaks to me, with
my whole heart I’ll agree. And I will answer Yes, Lord .. .Yes!” But friend, don’t stop with Yes … James reminds us
that faith without works (stepping out in obedience by faith) is dead. – of no
practical value.
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