Have you ever been given a task or command and not really understood the purpose?  It’s natural for us to want to understand the purpose or reasoning behind the things we are told to do.  Tell any child to do something and usually the reply is, “Why?”

I tend to dig into things to try and understand how and why something works the way it does.  How does this function?  How does this result come from these machinations?  It leads me to understand a lot of things (far from all things) but it also occasionally leads to heartache.  I’m not always privy to the why.  I don’t always get to know the inner workings.

Sometimes this is the case with our service to God and the things he affects in our lives.  We want to understand the why of it.  We don’t understand how this is going to “work for good” in our lives when it hurts occasionally.  We are blessed far beyond our fore bearers in this regard.  The Holy Spirit has revealed to us in the New Testament a lot of the “why” and a good portion of the “how it works” when it comes to the things we are commanded to do.  But some of it is still dim.  Sometimes when we ask, “Why”, the answer comes back with our favorite adult catch-phrase, “Because I said so.”

Are we willing to accept God’s commands at just his word?  Can we set aside our desire to know the reasons and just accept that God knows best?  Can we just give the answer Peter gave when he was sitting in the boat listening to Jesus tell him to let out his nets while absolutely positive there were no fish to be caught?

Luke 5:5 “… But at your word I will…”