Can You Obey God Without Knowing Why?
🌿 Can You Obey God Without Knowing Why?
“God always rewards the obedient. He does not necessarily reward the good, smart, brilliant or wealthy. He rewards the obedient.” — Prophet TB Joshua
🧩 God Does Not Give Instructions in Full
He gives them in parts. And each part is a test.
Most believers are waiting for full clarity before they obey. They want to see the whole plan, understand the full reason, and predict the outcome before they take a single step. But this is not how God works.
God gives His instructions in portions, not packages. He reveals what you need for now, not everything you want about later. Between one instruction and the next, He is watching. Will you obey what was already given? Will you hold your position while waiting for the next word? Or will you let impatience, logic, or pride convince you to move ahead of His voice?
The purpose of partial instruction is not to confuse you. It is to build you.
“Do not think that because God has not spoken, He is not there. His silence is not His absence — it is His method.” — Prophet TB Joshua
📖 Three Instructions. One Purpose. (Jeremiah 13:1–11)
Jeremiah did not know the plan when he received the first instruction. He only knew the instruction.
The first word from the LORD came plainly:
“Go and buy a linen loincloth and put it on, but do not wash it.” — Jeremiah 13:1
A linen loincloth, worn next to the skin. The command was specific: buy it, wear it, do not wash it. No explanation. No purpose statement. No preview of where this was going.
What did Jeremiah do?
“So I bought the loincloth as the LORD directed me and put it on.” — Jeremiah 13:2
No argument. No consultation. No demand for context. He obeyed. The instruction was unusual, even uncomfortable. But Jeremiah understood something the clever never learn: obedience does not require understanding.
Then came the second instruction:
“Take the linen loincloth you are wearing and go to the Euphrates River. Hide it there in a hole in the rocks.” — Jeremiah 13:4
No time frame. No “return in three days.” No promise of a third word. Jeremiah obeyed again and waited.
We do not know how long he wore the loincloth before the second instruction came. We do not know how long he waited before the third arrived.
Then:
“A long time afterward the LORD said to me, ‘Go back to the Euphrates and get the loincloth I told you to hide there.’” — Jeremiah 13:6
“A long time afterward.” Jeremiah went back, dug it out, and found the loincloth rotting and good for nothing. Only then did God reveal the purpose:
“This shows how I will rot away the pride of Judah and Jerusalem. These wicked people refuse to listen to me. They stubbornly follow their own desires and worship other gods. Therefore, they will become like this loincloth — good for nothing.” — Jeremiah 13:9–10
Three instructions. A long waiting period. An unusual process. And only at the end did the full meaning emerge.
This is how God works.
⚠️ The Three Who Cannot Obey the First Instruction
Obedience demands that you lay down your brilliance.
God’s partial instructions expose who we really are. The same first instruction Jeremiah obeyed would have been rejected by three kinds of people.
The Smart challenge the logic first. “Why wear clothing without washing it? That is not wisdom. That makes no sense.” The smart require reasons before steps. But God requires steps before explanations. Every time you demand to understand before you obey, you delay the next instruction.
The Clever begin to analyze and consult. They seek people who might interpret the meaning before God reveals it. They build theories, run the vision through human filters. And in the process of consulting, they end up acting on what people said rather than what God instructed. Many have ended up in the wrong place — not because they were rebellious, but because they were too clever to simply wait.
The Wealthy dismiss the instruction as beneath them. “I can afford fresh garments daily. Why would I wear one unwashed loincloth?” The wealthy trust their resources to exempt them from God’s processes. But God’s requirements are not calibrated to your net worth. Wealth cannot purchase a shortcut through the refining process.
“God always rewards the obedient. He does not necessarily reward the good, smart, brilliant or wealthy. He rewards the obedient.” — Prophet TB Joshua
This is why many people never truly reach their purpose. Not because God abandoned them, but because they truncated His plan. Disobedience at the first instruction disqualifies you from the second. Impatience between the second and third disqualifies you from the revelation. The smart, the clever, and the wealthy may never make it to the point where God speaks the purpose.
⏳ The Time Element: Patience Is Part of the Instruction
“A long time afterward” is not an editorial note. It is part of the test.
Obedience without patience is incomplete obedience. When God gives a partial instruction, He is also testing whether you can hold your post until the next word comes. The obedient servant does not remove the loincloth. He does not return to the Euphrates early. He does not check whether it has begun to decay.
He waits.
The clever person would not have made it to the third instruction. Wearing the same unwashed garment for an unknown period, without understanding why, requires something intelligence alone cannot produce: trust without sight.
“Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.” — Psalm 27:14
God values the process more than the result. We want the result more than the process. But it is the process that builds the character capable of carrying the result.
🔍 God Values the Processing More Than the Result
The rotten loincloth was not the failure. It was the point.
When Jeremiah finally retrieved the loincloth, it was useless. Rotting, falling apart, good for nothing. In human terms, that sounds like a wasted exercise. But in God’s terms, it was the precise and intended outcome.
The loincloth was not meant to be useful at the end. It was meant to become a prophetic sign — a visible demonstration of what happens to a people who refuse to listen and insist on following their own desires.
God was not building a loincloth. He was building a prophet. He was building a message. He was building a testimony.
The three instructions did not only produce a sign for Judah. They produced something in Jeremiah: a track record of unquestioning obedience, a proven willingness to follow God’s voice through the unusual, the unexplained, and the long. When God was ready to release Jeremiah’s most confrontational prophecies, He had a prophet whose obedience had already been proven in small and strange things.
“He who is faithful in what is least is faithful also in much.” — Luke 16:10 (NKJV)
God gives instructions in parts not to confuse you, but to confirm you. To confirm that you are trustworthy with what He is about to entrust.
📖 Others Who Obeyed Without the Full Picture
Every giant of faith was tested with incomplete instructions.
Noah — Genesis 6:14–22
God told Noah to build an ark. There was no rain. No visible reason. No meteorological forecast. The neighbors had no category for what Noah was building. He obeyed every specification as it came — the dimensions, the materials, the rooms. He built because God said build, not because he could see the flood coming.
“By faith Noah, when warned about things not yet seen, in holy fear built an ark to save his family.” — Hebrews 11:7
Abraham — Genesis 12:1–4
“Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you.” — Genesis 12:1
God did not give Abraham the address. He gave him the direction: leave. Abraham “went, even though he did not know where he was going” (Hebrews 11:8). The destination was not revealed until the obedience was demonstrated.
God’s complete revelation follows your complete surrender.
Moses — Exodus 3:10
God said to Moses: “Go, I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people out of Egypt.” He gave the mission, not the method. Moses did not receive the ten plagues in advance. He did not know Pharaoh would refuse nine times. He received one instruction at a time and obeyed each one before the next arrived.
Mary — Luke 1:38
When the angel announced that Mary would conceive the Son of God, she was not given a detailed explanation of how this would unfold, what Joseph would say, or that the birth would happen in a stable in Bethlehem. She received one word. Her response became the model of obedience for all time:
“Let it be to me according to your word.” — Luke 1:38
She obeyed the part she was given. That is all God ever asks.
📊 The Obedient vs. The Clever
| Aspect | The Clever | The Obedient |
|---|---|---|
| Response to unusual instruction | Questions the logic before acting | Acts on the instruction; trusts the logic to come |
| Approach to waiting | Grows restless, seeks alternatives | Holds position, stays close to God’s voice |
| Relationship with understanding | Requires understanding before obeying | Treats obedience as the path to understanding |
| Use of intelligence | Uses intelligence to evaluate God | Surrenders intelligence to God |
| Result of partial instruction | Stalls, consults others, or acts on human interpretation | Follows through and receives the next word |
| What they ultimately receive | Incomplete purposes, truncated journeys | Full revelation at God’s appointed time |
| Foundation | Their own logic and resources | God’s track record and faithfulness |
Obedience is not the absence of intelligence. It is the submission of intelligence.
🛡️ Practical Steps: How to Obey When You Cannot See the Whole Picture
These are not suggestions. They are postures for those who want to receive the next instruction.
Act on the instruction you have. Do not wait for full clarity before taking the first step. The next word comes after the first obedience, not before.
Do not consult people before you obey God. Seeking human interpretation of a divine instruction before acting on it is how the clever end up in the wrong place. Obey first.
Stop demanding reasons from God. “Why?” is a legitimate human question, but a poor condition for obedience. The reason will come. Obey now.
Stay at your post through the waiting season. The time between the second and third instruction is where most people quit. Do not remove the loincloth before God tells you to.
Trust that God values the process more than you do. You want the result. God wants the character. He is building something in you that the result alone cannot produce.
Review His past faithfulness. Every time He gave a partial instruction before, He was faithful to reveal the rest. His track record is the foundation for your next obedience.
🙏 Prayer
Lord, I confess that I have sometimes treated Your voice as something to evaluate before I act on it. I have demanded full clarity before offering full obedience. I have let my own intelligence become a barrier to Your instruction.
Teach me to obey the part before You reveal the purpose. Make me like Jeremiah — who bought the loincloth, wore it, hid it, and waited — without demanding to know why until You were ready to show him.
Remove from me the pride of the smart, the analysis of the clever, and the self-sufficiency of the wealthy. Let my response to Your voice be simple: I will go. I will wait. I will trust.
I do not need to see the full picture. I only need to obey the part You have placed in front of me. And I believe that at Your appointed time, You will reveal the purpose — and it will be worth everything the process required.
In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Good Morning 🌄 and PROSPER ✨ today!
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