Details missing

Ears to hear and eyes to see— both are gifts from the Lord. The Lord directs our steps, so why try to understand everything along the way? (Proverbs 20:12, 24)

The more we try to understand things sometimes, the more they can become kind of 'muddled' in our minds, especially when we don't know the motives behind the actions or events. They don't make sense on the surface, so we look deeper, hoping to find something that will give us an awareness that we didn't possess before. Ears to hear, eyes to see, direction from God - all are good gifts, but do we always hear, see with clarity, or know for certain we are headed in the right direction?

God's promise is that he WILL direct our steps. The more time we spend walking with Jesus, the more confident we become in knowing we don't ever walk alone. Our steps are 'ordered' - they are arranged, there is a 'method to the madness' that surrounds us at times even when we don't understand what is happening. The writer poses a very good question:  "...so why try to understand everything along the way?" If we always have to understand before we take the first step, we might just find ourselves standing still a long, long time!

Ears to hear. Too many times, we listen with the intent of hearing only one thing. When we don't hear what it is we expected to hear, we wonder if God is even there. Eyes to see - if you haven't figured it out yet, not everything God is doing is evident to us while he is doing it. We may be able to look back with some after-sight and see what he has accomplished through the various stages of something unfolding in our lives, but we didn't see all of that along the way, did we? We don't always hear, nor do we always see, therefore our understanding may not be as good as we'd like!

What God asks is that we trust him fully when we don't hear him clearly or see his actions on our behalf as they are unfolding. That trust isn't always easy, especially when we focus so much on needing to understand everything that is happening. If you have ever asked, "Why is this happening?", then you aren't alone. We inherently want the details, don't we? Sometimes the details are hidden, for just a while, until God is ready for us to know them. Perhaps he is waiting for us to be ready to hear them! Just sayin!