Don't Do Non-Sensible Things

When leading a group of people in just about anything, the leader must lay out his or her expectations for the group; otherwise they'll have no parameters within which to function -- the "obvious" is sometimes not obvious to everyone. Laying out the ground rules is what God did for the Israelites early in their existence as a free nation. Here's an interesting one:

When you are attacking a town and the war drags on, you must not cut down the trees with your axes. You may eat the fruit, but do not cut down the trees. Are the trees your enemies, that you should attack them? You may only cut down trees that you know are not valuable for food. Use them to make the equipment you need to attack the enemy town until it falls.
Deuteronomy 20:19-20, NLT

God is essentially saying to the Israelites, "Don't do this. It is dumb."

In my posts about blind faith, I mention the fact that faith is standing firm or moving forward in the promises of God based on who He is. However, I do not discount the fact that sometimes we'll be moved to do something that seems illogical. I believe, though (and Scripture bears this out), that this is the exception rather than the rule. Here we see that while is God giving instruction on how to behave during wartime, one major underlying point is "use common sense."

"If I do this thing and just believe, then God will make it happen." That sounds pretty faith-filled, but what if God didn't want you to do it in the first place? Is He going to bless the effort anyhow? If the thing fails, how do you deal with your questions as to why it failed? Here are some potential responses to such a scenario:

1) "God has a plan greater than my understanding."
2) "Why didn't God come through?" or "Why didn't God hear my prayers?"
3) "So-and-so [another person or Satan] fought it from the beginning."

But do we ever ask ourselves, "Was I ever really equipped to do that thing?" This could be spiritual preparation or, oddly often overlooked by Christ-followers, areas of personality, ability and skills, or plain ol' physical preparation.

In our efforts to do the work of the Lord, do we chop down our food-bearing trees to make axes for ourselves?

Posted in: Christianity, Life, Ministry, Thinking