The Doing That Teaches

"...Anyone who chooses to do the will of God will find out whether my teaching comes from God or whether I speak on my own." - John 7:17 (NIV)

There is probably a step you already know you need to take. Not a dramatic one, and not one requiring explanation. Just the next thing that has been quietly present while you waited for a little more clarity. We pray for that clarity and wonder if we are missing something. Then, every so often, we discover that what we needed was not more clarity beforehand, but simply the willingness to begin.

Have you ever noticed the order of Jesus' words here? "Anyone who chooses to do the will of God will find out whether my teaching comes from God or whether I speak on my own" (John 7:17). The understanding comes after the choosing, not before it. We often see that same order in ordinary life. A friendship is not fully known until we have stayed with another person through a time of difficulty. A commitment we weren't certain we should accept teaches us things we couldn't have learned beforehand. We act, and then we understand. That is how God works in us.

We tend to wait for something God never promised would arrive first. "The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things revealed belong to us... so that we may follow" (Deuteronomy 29:29), and what He has revealed is already enough to act on. The rest of the knowing belongs to Him. "Do not merely listen to the word... do what it says" (James 1:22), and something becomes visible through the doing that simply wasn't visible beforehand. Waiting is not the path into understanding. That path opens when we begin to obey.

We aren't on this road alone, and God has never asked us to find our own certainty before He walks it with us. "...all who follow his precepts have good understanding" (Psalm 111:10), and that understanding belongs to those who are already following, not to those still preparing to follow. He keeps His word as we go, and the next step does not arrive without Him.

So today may look ordinary. We accept an opportunity before we feel certain we should. We take up a discipline before its purpose becomes clear to us. We give before we can see what the giving will accomplish, or serve before we understand why. "Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path" (Psalm 119:105), not a floodlight on everything ahead, but enough light for the ground beneath the next step. And perhaps that is the promise we keep discovering, that those who choose to do the will of God do "find out" (John 7:17), and they find out by obeying, not before they obey. Stay close.

Prayer

Father, You have already shown us the next step. Give us the trust to take it before we understand everything You are building, and teach us what You mean along the way. Keep us close. Amen.