UNDERSTANDING

“UNDERSTANDING”

Words are wonderful things . . . .

And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God. 

Col 1:9-10  ESV

I’ll deal with this whole verse later.  Right now I’m in love with the word “understanding.”

How many times have we read a passage and responded, “Huh?”  How many times have we tries to understand more about our faith and come up with nothing?  Well, one of the reasons may be a faulty idea of what “understanding,” is.

Let me preface this with the admonition that, as this verse clearly states, “understanding,” like “knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom,” is not something you and I are going to get out of a book, a class, a course or an experience.  Certainly all these may facilitate being filled with these things but I’m parking my boat on a deep need for His provision even in what seems like something we can do on our own.  If Paul is asking that we “may be filled,” I don’t think we, on our own have a hope of understanding much of anything.

Understanding:  σύνεσις   sunesis   soon'-es-is

·         The noun sýnesis means 'union,' 'confluence,' then 'comprehension,' 'understanding,' 'discernment,' and finally 'self-awareness.'

o   Old Testament.  The use is similar to that in the Greek world except that understanding is native only to God and hence is a gift for which one must pray ( 1  Kgs.  3:9 ; Ps.  119:34 ). Practical judgment rather than theoretical understanding is the main concern, its organ is the heart ( Is.  6:9 - 10 ), and its objects are God's works ( Ps.  28:5 ), fear ( Prov.  2:5 ), righteousness (2:9), will ( Ps.  111:10 ), and wisdom ( Prov.  2:1 ff.). KTD

Note please that this is not something innate in us.  Nor does it appear that this is something we can “get.”  Rather it is something that must be given.  Notice also that the focus, although the word carries a meaning of self-awareness, that the object of this understanding is God.

We can certainly understand that we might well need His gift to understand Him but understanding ourselves?  From a non-biblical perspective (psychology) this does not make a lot of sense and makes trying to be “self-aware,” a frustrating and fruitless activity.  But, if one accepts that the fall has warped everything and that our heart is deceitful to the max and we are blind event to ourselves – then it makes perfectly good sense.

And there’s the problem.  We come to Christ knowing we need His grace to be saved and His wisdom to serve but whom among us was ever told that we needed understanding from Him to understand ourselves?  I know I wasn’t.  So perhaps we begin our walk with a limp.  We think we know ourselves – that we are pretty self-aware, but we are not.  Our blindness extends beyond the spiritual (I hate using that word) into the psychological.  We are blind to the truths of God and the truth of us.

This leads me to believe that for many many years I’ve been trimming a shrub that suffers from root-rot.

I assumed I knew me and just added Jesus.  Oh certainly I was no longer blind in any way but I was looking at a very limits selection of things.  I never realized – never had any idea that “I” needed His help to know “Me.” 

Yes, I knew I was a sinner and sinful – yada yada – but I assumed I was pretty self-aware.  Dumb me – praise Him.  It similar to the condition may pseudo-believers suffer.  They know “about” Jesus but they do not know Him.  I know about me but in view of this word I wonder if I know me the way I could know me if I asked Him to help me know me.

Boy, that was a brain twister.

Now, the “organ” associated with “understanding,” is the heart.  Do I really need to paste in the scriptures that teach about our hearts?  Yes, we have a new heart – but the old one has residual effects. 

I think of David’s prayer, “Create in me a clean heart . . . . “   He does not ask God to clean his heart but to create a clean one in him.  Get it?  This is not a transplant!  This is a creation!  A whole new, clean heart that’s got no miles on it.

Reading that prayer – prayerfully – I realize how desperate the condition of my heart really is – and I’ve read that verse thousands of times.  So I have a new insight into my flesh and a deadly an enemy it is – still.

Read Matthew 13 and you’ll get a real taste of what we’re dealing with here.  Ouch!

Understanding – true understanding is a gift from God which we should diligently seek.  Without it our walk will be with a limp.  To understand ones “self” on must know God and have a willingness to receive from Him what only He can give.  Without Christ as our Lord and Savior we have no true understanding of ourselves and hence no hope.  At least that’s what He says – my money’s on Him.