I read in a book by Joyce Myers that we need to be mindfully set on obeying God rather than fear, doubt and Satan’s lies. I agree with her, that doubt is Satan’s way of attacking our faith. Doubt rises when Satan is determined to want to stop us from doing God’s will. It means to make a decision to listen to God and not to submit to doubt, fear, lies, or even our own intellect that might try to convince us to do something contrary to God’s will.
Satan will try to plant seeds of doubt – that is a given. But we have a choice whether to listen to it or not. We must submit to the Spirit’s will above our own. God is superior in intellect and knowledge. Not only that, He is also benevolent and kind. Thus His reasoning and rationale is always sound – He has an infinite amount of knowledge to back up His decisions – more knowledge than our puny brains could possibly fathom. Also because He is benevolent, He will always use His knowledge for our best interests. Thus, He is a reasonable God, and one that will not use His knowledge against us. His decisions are always right and true and based on facts that our puny brains can’t possibly fathom. Thus we can be confident and assured that His demands are never “unreasonable”. He will NEVER make an unreasonable or illogical request. He is the inventor of all things, including logic and reason.
I consider our capacity for logic and reason to be gifts from God, but just like any gift, it can be misused. In this manner, I disagreed with Joyce Myers. Joyce said she abandoned reason because it always got her into trouble. The more she knew, the more she worried, and became full of fear and doubt. But if she lacked knowledge, she obsessed about reasoning things out, to the point of talking herself out of following God’s commands. In her mind, all reasoning is evil. But I don’t see it that way at all. Without “reasoning” we wouldn’t have scientists, and surely there is a place for them in heaven too! I consider the ability to think critically, analytically, and logically, to be a valuable gift from God, not something to be ignored and tossed aside, but something that can be used to glorify God, if used properly, and with the proper perspective. When “reasoning” things out, a person should always be humble enough to keep in mind that his conclusions, based on the facts laid in front of him, may be wrong. That is, our ability to reason should never cause us to be arrogant and think that all our conclusions are right. God is the only person who is always right all the time, and who quite literally, really does have all the facts laid before Him. Thus, His conclusions and judgment are always sound. However, we humans cannot possibly know all the facts because we have only a small finite knowledge of the world.
However, that doesn’t mean that our capacity for reason shouldn’t be ignored. That would be the same as telling a musician he shouldn’t compose music because his mastery of music could never compete against God’s. Or telling a painter he should ignore painting sunsets because God alone can make a perfect sunset. The gifts that we have, whether logic, intellect, knowledge, music, painting, should be used for God’s glory, with the perspective that these abilities are merely gifts, we did nothing to earn them, and God could, at any time, strip them away. As long as we are humble enough to submit these gifts to God, to know that they are nothing in comparison to the power and grace of God, we should be fine. Our gifts should never be misused, either edifying ourselves with pride, arrogance, or come between us and the Lord. If our gifts are leading us into sin, then I see why one might abandon it. As Jesus says, if your eye is causing you to sin, pluck it out; if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. Better a man enter heaven blind or lame than not to enter heaven at all (paraphrased). So abandoning reason because it caused you to sin is perfectly good and right according to God’s Word. However, if someone is able to use the gift of reason in a manner that edifies the Lord, than it’d be a sin to encourage that person to abandon his ability to reason.
Personally, I am a very logical person, and got a degree in mathematics. I love math and science and feel that these things also are gifts from God. I believe that humans were meant to learn and explore this great universe, and God has revealed some of this knowledge through the sciences.
Notice I say “some”. Like I said before, we humans have the capacity of learning only a finite amount of knowledge. Therefore our knowledge of the universe will ALWAYS be finite, no matter how long and hard we strive to learn everything. This is God’s way of keeping scientists humble! However, the journey through knowledge and discovery can be a wonderful and thrilling experience, and someone who loves the Lord has an even greater appreciation for it, because it is so humbling to see how wondrous and marvelous God created this great universe.
Our capacity to reason, by using facts to come to draw conclusions, can sometimes be used by Satan to warp our view and draw the wrong conclusions, or ones contrary to what God would want us to do.
Consider this: a man needs surgery to save his life. Suppose the man feels in his heart that God is asking him to go through with the surgery. But suppose later on the man finds out about the risks of the surgery. Much to his chagrin, he finds that the odds are very high for complications, and even death. This knowledge sparks fear into the man’s heart. Then jumps in Satan. He can sense this man’s fear. Using the man’s gift of logic and reasoning against him, he tries to convince the man the surgery isn’t worth the risk. The man has a choice – either follow God’s will and submit to the surgery, or submit to his own fears based on logical reasoning. The man can either trust God and trust that God knows what He’s doing by asking him to go through with the surgery, or trust his own limited knowledge on what might happen if he goes through with it. Since God always knows what He’s doing, and nothing He directs us to do is ever “unreasonable”, although it might seem so to our limited brains, he should do as God asked him to do and follow through with the surgery.
I think of it this way – our heart is a compass and there is God on one side and our flesh on the other. We are approached with a moral decision. Suppose we know what God would want us to do, but our flesh selfishly doesn’t feel like it. The heart’s desire will either lean towards desiring what God would want us to do, or point to pleasing the flesh. Then the mind steps in and will logically try to “reason” why one decision is more appealing than the other. But if we know what God would want us to do, there is not much to “reason” out. If our heart is pointing towards God, our logic should dictate that if I want to please God, logically, I should do what He says. There is nothing more to “reason” out. However, when the arrow is pointing towards the flesh, Satan will inevitably plant every “reason” and excuse into our brain as to why submitting to the flesh is a superior solution. Our reasoning brain will listen to all the excuses until it all seems perfectly logical. The problem was when our heart’s compass started to lean towards the flesh, and we gave Satan the time of day by allowing him to provide us his arguments.
But what about all the decisions we make every day in which we don’t hear a voice from God? Perhaps we are trying to decide on which house or car to buy, what job offer to accept, or what college we should attend. We might pray about these things only to get silence from God.
God has appointed us stewards of our bodies and households. Thus, if it is cold and raining outside, as wise stewards of our vulnerable bodies, reason would suggest we wear a jacket and bring an umbrella before we leave the house. As wise stewards of our households, we might take a job offer that provides a higher salary in order to provide for a growing family. If we have financial struggles, we might decide on a cheaper home to buy in order to keep down costs. All these decisions are based on reason and common wisdom. And God would not be displeased by anyone using their talents of reason and wisdom in this manner.
There are many other decisions that we make all the time that have no right or wrong answers. It’s more of a matter of weighing our options. If our car breaks down, we consider other options of getting to work: rent a car, carpool with a coworker, take the bus, etc. If we get sick and come down with the flu, we might do one of the following: drag yourself into work because you don’t want to waste your sick days, stay home and self-medicate with over-the-counter medicines and get plenty of rest, or go to urgent care and get professional medical advice. We weigh the pros and cons of each decision. For many of these decisions there’s no right or wrong answer. God doesn’t always comment on these day-to-day decisions. In fact, most of the time He doesn’t. But that’s okay! That doesn’t mean He’s abandoned us.
I love reading the book of Acts. In the book of Acts, Saint Paul goes on several lengthy missionary journeys. It is interesting where his travels took him. His life after he became a believer was chock full of uncertainty. He never had a plan. And he never knew where he’d end up next. But that didn’t stop him. He’d just preach in whatever region he happened to be staying in. There were times he’d get chased out of one town and wind up someplace else, someplace he probably least expected to be. But he never questioned his circumstances. Wherever he ended up at, he’d start to preach there. If he ended up in jail, he’d preach to the jailer and his fellow prisoners. If he wound up in court, he’d use the opportunity to tell his personal testimony before the Roman leaders. If he was taken by force by Roman soldiers onto a ship during a storm, he’d use the opportunity to show compassion them, pray for them, and assure them that God intended them to live. He never questioned his circumstances. He just seemed to go along with the ride. While circumstances seemed to toss him about, this way and that, from one place to another, sometimes under terrible persecution and death threats, Saint Paul always took it all in stride. As far as he was concerned, every situation was preordained by God. All he needed to do was take full advantage of every opportunity to use those situations to God’s glory.
Sometimes our journey seems shaky and uncertain. Sometimes we worry about the future. We worry about making the “wrong” choices. We ask ourselves things like: What if I misinterpreted the signs? Maybe God never wanted me to break up with my boyfriend after all. What if God really wanted me to take some other job? What if I chose the wrong career for my life? What if God wanted me to move to another state? What if God really wanted me to … you fill in the blank.
But what is the worst thing that could happen if you did make a “mistake”? Do you really believe God will abandon you if you did make a mistake? Do you believe God does not have the power to rectify your “mistake”? Surely, God blessed King David and Bathsheba with a son who would become one of the greatest and wisest kings who ever lived. God not only forgave David for his “mistake” in committing adultery. He blessed him with a remarkable son, King Solomon, who would eventually organize the building of the Temple to the Lord in Jerusalem. Surely, God blesses us even with our mistakes!
Surely, I have made some life-changing decisions that at first, I wasn’t sure were the “right” ones. But what I have realized is that God is always faithful, even in the midst of our uncertainty. I can look back and see how God richly blessed me, even when I wasn’t certain of myself and my decisions. Whether I made the “right” decisions or the “wrong” ones, God was present. He was faithful.
In the end, we use our reasoning to the best of our ability, in a God-honoring way, but it ultimately doesn’t really matter whether we made the “right” decisions or the “wrong” ones. But what does matter is what did we do with the decisions that we made? Did we make the best of every opportunity to give thanks and praise to God? Did we use our gifts, whatever they may be, to the best of our ability, to God’s glory? Did we offer praise to God when God chose to bless us in spite of our “mistakes”?