I’m glad my parents loved me enough to sometimes require my obedience without explaining why I needed to obey. It does help in emergencies when you have no time to explain, but it also has a very important life application: God doesn’t always explain Himself to us.
Sometimes God will tell you to do something with no other context or explanation. He’s God so He knows what He told you to do is good, and you know that He is good, but you have no clue why He told you to do this. The point is to give God your faithful obedience. This means you do what you were told right away no matter what!
In the sermon yesterday morning we heard about Philip, and how God told him to leave a revival and go to the middle of nowhere (Acts 8:4-8 & 26). No given reason, no explanation. Just go. So Philip went, and only when he arrived did he begin to see why (Acts8:27-29). Philip once again followed God’s directions when he was instructed to just run up to this Ethiopian man. Then he heard this man reading part of the Bible, specifically Isaiah, and asked the man if he understood what he was reading (Acts 8:30). A conversation followed, and this man decided he wanted to know more. Philip told him more and explained that Isaiah was talking about Jesus Acts8:31-35). Before long this man understood, and wanted to be baptized. He asked how, and Philip told him he must believe with all his heart first, at which point the man said and confessed that he believed Jesus is the Christ and the Son of God. Then he was baptized in the water at which they stopped (Acts 8:36-38).
Many times you won’t know why God told you something until after you obey. Sometimes it is a long time afterwards. Sometimes you may never know, at least not in this life. But when God tells you to do something, you should do it, right away and completely. You never know how God will use your obedience.