Taking personal safety and the defense of my household seriously, I tend to be alert to potential dangers. I like to know where the exits are located. I prefer not to sit with my back to the door. It’s not paranoia, just situational awareness.

My children don’t need to be as cognizant of possible threats as I do. It is my burden to protect them, not their own. While I don’t expect them to notice what I notice, it is, nevertheless, imperative they respond immediately and without question to my directions in an emergency.

Sometimes, I wonder if I told them all to get under the table whether they would do so right away or ask, “Why, Daddy?” If I told them all to run out the back door, I don’t know for sure if they would hear me and react without delay. They’re respectful and obedient children, as my wife and I have trained them to be, but in a hazardous situation they just might not understand. Yet, when understanding is least likely is precisely when unquestioning submission will be most necessary.

The same is true of a disciple’s obedience to the Lord. Unwavering compliance to God’s will is required regardless of comprehension.

All are commanded to “not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is” (Ephesians 5:17), not why it is the Lord’s will, but what it is.

No mortal should expect to know the reason behind all that God does. “Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out! ‘For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has become His counselor?’” (Romans 11:33-34). Again, it is written, “’For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,’ says Jehovah. ‘For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:8-9).

Even when the Almighty invited, “Come now, and let us reason together” (Isaiah 1:18), the Hebrew word has more to do with reproach than it does dialogue.

Whatever God commands, people must obey, trusting He will reveal the information that is needed, but whatever He keeps to Himself is His business (Deuteronomy 29:29).

By Bryan Matthew Dockens

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