Obedience Over Understanding

Obedience is the daily practice of trusting God. I often think I do a pretty good job of trusting God, until those moments where I think I have a better plan than God does and I can control the situation better, when I ask the “why” questions and wonder “where is God in all of this?” How do I keep trusting Him when life seems like it’s not going according to plan, according to my plan?

I recently read in Joshua 6 the story of the Israelites marching around Jericho. This is a perfect example of choosing obedience over understanding. They continued to take steps, even when they didn’t know what the plan was, even when there were no signs they kept marching. Each step was a step of obedience towards God’s promise. And when the walls of Jericho fell it wasn’t because of their plans or the ability of the Israelites, it was their obedience to God, who is powerful and mighty.

In the same way don’t we wish we could continue marching even when we don’t see what is in front of us? It’s so hard to continue obeying God when we don’t see physical, real signs that He is working towards something that we like. So how do we keep walking in obedience even when we don’t understand? We hold firm to the hope we have in Him and His promises. We choose to walk forward in life by faith, not by sight. We keep taking steps forward even when we don’t see what’s coming.

God is not silent. He is present and He is always working. He has great plans and He will fulfill them. He just needs us to obey.