Post #87 - Gaining Understanding

I came to a realization today... about understanding. 

The bible says to lean not on our own understanding, but to seek God and His understanding and He will direct us (Proverbs 3:6). 

As I was reading today, a very complex scholarly novel about literature, I began to get a little worked up over my lack of understanding of the topic. Scholarly and literary works tend to use big, intellectual words that only the people who have extensively studied the topic can understand. 

I found myself getting frustrated as a new doctoral student, over the fact that I am expected, at this stage, to critically examine and write about information that I know nothing about!

Then God reminded me of Proverbs 3:6. It is not my own understanding that I should depend on. I had a hard time understanding it because I didn't pray and give the assignment and my understanding of it to God before I began.

Some might say that I'm going too far, that it doesn't take all that...

But putting God first in everything means to put Him first.... in EVERYTHING. Even something as trivial as a doctoral assignment. 

I realized that I was depending on my own ability to understand the information I was reading. I, with my limited mind, was trying to understand a topic, or language, that I had never heard before. How can I expect myself to understand something I don't know? 

But God is all-knowing. 

And when we ask God for understanding, no matter the topic or situation, He will give it to us. He will give us the direction we need to gain the understanding we need. 

So, I stopped reading, I "woo-saa'd", and I went to God in prayer. I asked Him for understanding of the information and the ability to retain it. To gain knowledge of something I did not know before. And I asked for the ability to critically analyze the information and present it to my professor with the intellect that I know I possess. 

I just have to trust God for understanding, believe in myself, and tap into my God-given genius.

This is true for all of us. We must all do this. 

We all have the capacity to do beyond what we think we can do. To understand beyond what we think we can understand. 

We just have to depend on God's understanding and not our own.