The Gift of Not Knowing - The Crosswalk Devotional - August 3
The Gift of Not Knowing
By: Whitney Hopler
Bible Reading:
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.” – Proverbs 3:5, NIV
Before I began a road trip to Wilmington, North Carolina, I prayed for a safe trip. In my mind, I had a very simple understanding of how the trip would go. I would stay in the right lane, drive the speed limit, and stay completely safe because of my own careful driving. But things changed in a heartbeat on the highway. Without warning, a car merged into my lane, right in front of me. The driver wasn’t paying attention at all. Cars were speeding by in the next lane, so I couldn’t move over. I was trapped! I had to slam on my brakes to keep from hitting that car. Behind me, a massive tractor-trailer truck was coming fast. I remember feeling terrified when I looked in the rearview mirror and saw it speeding toward my car. The truck came within inches of my back bumper before it somehow slowed down enough to stop in just enough time before hitting me.
In those few seconds, my previous understanding of the trip was gone. I was helpless. But God wasn’t. God knew that experience was coming long before I even started driving that day. He had already planned to answer my prayers for protection.
Looking back, I realize something important: if God had shown me a video of that near-accident before I left my driveway, I would have been so scared that I may not have taken the trip at all. But God, in his kindness, kept that information from me. He gave me the gift of not knowing so that I could move forward in faith. I’m so glad I trusted God to handle the details I couldn’t see.
Proverbs 3:5 encourages us to trust God completely rather than relying on our own understanding. As humans with limited perspectives, there’s a lot we don’t know. But God, who knows everything and can do anything, uses that unlimited knowledge and power for good. We can trust in God’s goodness to us, even when we don’t understand what’s happening. There’s wisdom in being willing to say that we don’t know, but God does.
We all sometimes face closed doors. Maybe we applied for a job we thought we were perfect for, but didn’t get it. Maybe a relationship we valued suddenly fell apart. Or, maybe a plan we prayed over for months still didn’t work out.
Often, we try to figure out why. We replay the situation in our minds, because we think that if we can understand it, we can control it. We believe understanding will bring us peace. But the truth is that we can’t force God’s big plans into our small human boxes. God works in ways that go far beyond our understanding. God’s possibilities for our lives are bigger than the ones we’ve imagined for ourselves. When we choose to trust God in situations that don’t make sense to us, we welcome God’s very best into our lives by making space for all of God’s possibilities to happen.
We can still be at peace when we don’t understand what God is doing. Mysteries can challenge us to grow our faith in God by stepping out of our comfort zones and trusting him in new ways. When we don’t know something, we can be sure that God does.
In the gap between what we know and what God knows, we can find grace. Not knowing something is sometimes a gift from God.
Intersecting Faith & Life:
As you consider why it’s important to trust God when you don’t know something, reflect on these questions:
- What’s one situation happening in your life right now that doesn’t make sense to you? Even though you don’t understand it, how can you still trust God to do what’s best for you in that situation?
- When did you experience a past situation that didn’t make sense at the time, but God showed you later how he was protecting you through it? How can that memory help you trust God with your current unknowns?
- How can you strengthen your faith by embracing mysteries and letting them show you something new about how God works?
- How can believing that God’s plans for you are beyond what you can understand help you worry less about the future?
Further Reading:
Isaiah 55:8-9
1 Corinthians 13:12
Romans 11:33
Psalm 131:1
Ephesians 3:20
How did today’s devotional speak to you? Share your thoughts in the Crosswalk Devotional discussion.
Photo Credit: ©iStock/Getty Images Plus/Rekeisha Dunlap
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