CHAPTER 3:
It exceeds our understanding

At the time that I first considered becoming a Christian, I held an assortment of provocative opinions on social, political, as well as spiritual issues. Many of these were formulated directly from videotapes of the Phil Donahue Show, meshed with my vast experience of life and penetrating intellect. I had always reasoned things out, basing my acceptance on whatever viewpoint as it making sense to me. I deemed this strategy to be enlightenment.

Ha ha!

When God started awakening me, the chambers of my mind kept echoing: The Word of God has to flow first to your heart, and then to your head. Huh? What is that supposed to mean? Though miles and years apart, my Christian witnesses - first my brother-in-law and later Wade Rowdon - had concurred in this sentiment.

As I became acquainted with Scripture, I looked up "understanding" in a bible concordance and found:

• "Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct your paths." - Proverbs 3:5-6, NKJ "...incline your ear to wisdom and apply your heart to understanding." - Proverbs 2:2, NKJ
• "My purpose is that they may be encouraged in heart and united in love, so that they may have the full riches of complete understanding, in order that they may know the mystery of God, namely, Christ." - Colossians 2:2, NIV
• "O you simple ones, understand prudence, and you fools, be of an understanding heart." - Proverbs 8:5, NKJ.
• "For You have hidden their heart from understanding; therefore You will not exalt them." - Job 17:4, NKJ.

You've noticed that understanding is linked to the heart, not to the mind? The parable of the sower in Matthew Chapter 13 demonstrates that the Word of God (the seed) must take root in the heart. "For this people's heart has become callused; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts and turn, and I would heal them," (verse 15).

The story of Job (the book of Job in the Old Testament) shows that wisdom lies in submission to God, not Donahue. God challenged Job's arrogance:

"Who is this who darkens counsel by words without knowledge? Now prepare yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer Me. Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell Me, if you have understanding. Who determined its measurements? Surely you know! Or who stretched the line upon it? To what were its foundations fastened? Or who laid its cornerstone?" (Job 38:2-6).

Perhaps you're not convinced the universe is strictly the handiwork of God. In Beyond Death's Door, a book about near death experiences (more elaboration in Chapter 8 of this book), Maurice Rawlings, M.D., addresses those who are too smart to believe in God. Writes Dr.. Rawlings:

"The late scholar Edwin Conklin, a professor of biology, compared the probability of life originating by accident to the probability of an unabridged dictionary being produced by an explosion in a printing shop. Yet many highly educated men say there is no God - just science. They forget...the god of science is forever changing and requiring updating and revision, while the God of the Bible remains the same yesterday, today, and forever. Perhaps some people try to hide themselves in atheism or agnosticism since belief in God would require accountability to Him. Other people are looking for God through a myopic vision, when they merely need to look up from themselves and see His creation that speaks of Him everywhere. Certainly the chaos of chance could not have evolved into the present cosmos of order."

It takes faith, actually, to believe in both the big bang theory, and its paganistic cousin - evolution. It is a faulty faith. There has never been factual evidence of cell mutations breaking the species barrier. Yet this is the premise upon which evolution is based?

God is the creator and master. It's as if He's playing six billion chessboards simultaneously. Rarely being able to beat a computerized chess game, I try no more to second-guess God.

Isaiah 55:8-9 makes it clear: "For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways," declares the LORD. "For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts."

Daily Submission

Everyday life furnishes abundant precedents of submission to someone else's knowledge, wisdom, or authority. In large corporations, a common malady is lower-level workers not understanding the initiatives of management. Seeing not the big picture of corporate operation, the whys and wherefores of their directives escape and frustrate them.

Would a parent want his or her 5-year-old child deciding what time to go to bed, what to eat, when to bathe, what to watch on TV, whether or not to go to school, and what to wear?

The disparity in competence and capability is far greater between God and you or me, than between a parent and a 5-year-old. And yet we insist on making our own decisions, apart from God.

This doesn't mean God wants us to stop thinking; as if it is possible to be bible robots. Faith is not something that is blind and ignorant. You won't find Thou shalt not think among the ten commandments. Examine the claims of Christianity and challenge its authenticity. It is recorded in Acts 17:11 that "the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true."

Analyzing the Word of God - the Holy Bible - is an intriguing intellectual endeavor. There are countless intricacies to figure out. This could be why we are told to love God with all our heart, soul, and mind (Matthew 22:37).

You don't have to be a blaspheming, liberal philosopher to employ brain power. But everything has to be filtered through the heart, the holy portal of understanding. Zig Ziglar, famous author and motivational speaker, says that "apart from the Word of God, there is no wisdom." The verse resting squarely in the middle of the Bible, incidentally, says "It is better to trust in the LORD than to put confidence in man," (Psalm 118:8).

We seem to have degenerated into a nation of people trying to impress one another with how smart we are, how open-minded, and how tolerant (and generally how miserable). It's interesting that Matthew 7:14 indicates: "But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it."

The Bible is full of examples of the consequences that occur when "everyone did what was right in his own eyes," (Judges 21:25). So many of us want to ignore God in our assessment of important matters. We listen to people who dazzle us with their rhetoric, or articulation, or eloquence.

The second chapter of Isaiah admonishes: "Stop trusting in man, who has but a breath in his nostrils," (verse 22). And Isaiah 5:21: "Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight!"

The Hebrew word from which "trust" is derived occurs 36 times in the Old Testament in verb form. It frequently paints a picture of nesting under God's wing, taking refuge (Psalm 57:1, 91:4, and Ruth 2:12).

Clenching the reigns of your own life to the point of squeezing out God restricts you from enjoying the full measure of promises enumerated in the Bible. You strike EUREKA over hard-to-decipher scriptures from a heart that is submissive to God, a heart through which understanding can flow.

Patriarchs Proved Trustworthy

The Old Testament shows us how Noah, Abraham, and Moses, as well as many others, learned what God would do in their lives once they fully trusted Him. The story of Noah building an ark is a familiar one (Genesis 7). What eludes the casual Christian, however, is that previous to Noah it had never rained. The earth was moistened by only the morning dew. Furthermore, Noah and his sons were constructing an ark when there was no body of water upon the earth.

Genesis 7:11 records that "In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on the same day all the fountains of the great deep burst open, and the floodgates of the sky were opened," (NAS). This was the first rain from the sky, and the springs of bodies of water.

Hebrews 11:7 explains that "By faith Noah, being warned {by God} about things not yet seen, in reverence prepared an ark for the salvation of his household, by which he condemned the world, and became an heir of the righteousness which is according to faith," (NAS).

Noah obviously trusted not in his own understanding. Abraham indicated that he likewise relinquished self rule by addressing God as Adonai. It means "master, ruler, owner." The first reference to it is in Genesis 15:2, when Abraham is still known as Abram.

Adonai is one of several Hebrew words the English text translates "God." But in references to God, Hebrew uses different distinctions to be more specific. Jehovah, for instance, signifies the holiness and righteousness of God. Words prefixed by El express the might and power of God.

(Why would there be more than one name for God? Think about yourself: are you husband/wife, father/mother, uncle/aunt, brother/sister, doctor, manager, nurse, engineer, and an assortment of other identifications for various roles? A bible concordance will indicate the original Hebrew or Greek, and thus provide insight into the specific scripture.)

God promised Abram that his seed would be as numerous as the stars of heaven. But it was not until Abram had totally yielded that fulfillment arrived; the birth of Isaac years later. The ultimate test of Abraham's trusting, however, came when he placed Isaac on the altar of sacrifice (Genesis 22:2).

Moses acknowledged God as master, owner, and protector in Exodus 4:10. Still, he hedged on his burning bush mandate to lead the children of Israel out of Egypt (Exodus 4:13). Eventually, when he was wedged in by mountains, sea, and Pharoah's fast-approaching army, Moses' trust in Adonai produced the parting of the Red Sea.

God Seeks Our Trust

And God still works this way today. A young woman who visited my church in 1993 explained how God directed her to leave China to attend an American university to learn the Russian language. After three years of study, the Lord told her to go to Israel; Hebrew-speaking Israel! She was perplexed, but obedient. Once she arrived in Jerusalem and made contact with the International Christian Embassy (ICEJ), she started to see what God had in mind. The ICEJ was beginning to bring Jewish immigrants out of the dissolved Soviet Union (more in chapter 10).

I can claim being at least partially yielded to God, striving to be totally submissive. Thus, God parted a Red Sea, of sorts, in my life in July 1992.

My wife Cathy, and I were excited about partaking in a Holy Land pilgrimage with Pastor Mike and a couple dozen of our church family. But Cathy's persistent, chronic back problem caused serious concern. Would it endure 20 hours in an airplane, plus bus rides through the Israeli countryside, and various rigors associated with international travel?

A week before our departure, a two-hour automobile trip inflamed Cathy's back. The pain was temporarily debilitating. We prayed that her sciatica would not cause Cathy to be sequestered in the hotel room all of our pilgrimage.

We boarded the plane packed with precaution: medications, heating pad, and a strategy. We were relieved that the flight did not trigger backpain of the type that had been so common in recent weeks. Once on Israeli soil, Cathy had not a hint of the problem that had plagued her for months. She ran, crawled into a cave, bounced along on bus rides, and ambulated without the least limitation.

It is important to note that it was clear to us that God wanted us to make the pilgrimage. We knew this by the financial arrangement that enabled us to go. We trusted that Cathy's back condition would not ruin our trip.

It is also interesting to note that Cathy's back did not heal earlier, when the Israel pilgrimage was in its contemplative stage. I don't think the Red Sea parted until Moses lifted his foot and was about to place it in the water. He took a step of faith, and at a less dramatic level so did Cathy in proceeding through her pain to board an airplane for God's chosen land.

Though I certainly have not perfected this strategy, I strive to keep Proverbs 3:5-6 at the forefront of my life, trusting not in my understanding, but in all ways acknowledging God and letting Him direct my path.

The Bible tells us in Hebrews 11:6 that without faith it is impossible to please God. Like a muscle, faith is something that has to be exercised in order to grow stronger.

Most of those interesting opinions I used to store in a reservoir of intellect have been washed away by the majesty of God. When He touches your heart, the foolishness of your thinking becomes unmistakable.

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