Beyond Understanding

Let's face it, we like order in life.  We like to have everything under control.  We like to calculate and plan and prepare and set our calendars.  And we want to know just what God is doing.  Recently, I was reading the story of Samson's birth.  Samson was a judge over Israel, and his birth is one of many miraculous birth stories in the Bible.

His parents are encountered by an angel who declares to them Samson's pending birth and gives this special instructions about how to nurture and raise him to be the leader God has created him to be.  They invite the angel to stay for dinner and Samson's father asks the angel his name.  This is his reply:

He replied, “Why do you ask my name? It is beyond understanding." (Judges 13:18)

It's a profound notion.  You can't even understand my name.  You couldn't dream of understanding everything else going on in the heavenly realms.  When you meet a person with a unique name, it might take you a few minutes to pronounce it right. You might ask them what it means in their family or in their language, and they tell you.  It all makes sense then.  You understand they are from a unique family or culture, but you eventually get it.  This angel was from a culture, a realm, a world, a place, an existence that you and I can't understand.

I want to understand all that God is doing in my life and in the world.  I don't.  I can't.  My knowledge and scope is soooooooooo limited.  That leaves me with lingering questions:  Am I going to trust and follow even if I don't fully understand where I am going?  Am I going to 'lean into' Jesus even if I can't fully see where, exactly, I'm leaning?  Am I'm I going to take my next faithful step even if I'm not sure what the step after that looks like?

I am convinced this is the course for people of faith and a critical step in becoming a disciple.  We so deeply want it all to make sense and have the next 5-10-20 years planned out.

We can't.

Because we don't know where this is going.

And even if He told us, it is beyond our understanding.

For we see dimly what will one day be clear.

But it's not for now.

So will you just go?  Will you stop planning and just take the next faithful step?  That's my task.  I don't understand it all, Lord, but I'm willing to walk with you.  Because though it doesn't always make sense, I trust YOU more than the best-laid plans of mice and men, namely me.  Could that be your prayer today?