This thought keeps coming to me, especially as I’m driving in my car. I see these signs all over the place: stores, restaurants, vehicles, billboards, etc. At first glance, I read something that always catches me off guard or makes me laugh. Then, as I take a second, sometimes third glance, I realize I misread it the first time. This has happened so many times over the past two months, I am convinced God is trying to teach me something.
How often do we look at a situation and at first glance make a judgment call? Too often when we refuse a second or third glance, we grow more and more adamant that our perception is the accurate one. Anyone else who sees something different than our first glance judgment we think is wrong. How many times have we looked at something and assumed we understood, only to return to ponder it and realize our initial judgment was in error? We do this with other people concerning political views, healthcare views, religious views, and lifestyle views, etc. Sadly, some ‘christians’ also do this while reading the Bible. The human eye and brain can be so easily manipulated. Watching an episode of Brain Games with my kiddos shows me how true this is.
One Old Testament Hebrew word for ‘understand’ is H995 בִּין – bı̂yn (bene); A primitive root; to separate mentally (or distinguish), that is, (generally) understand: – attend, consider, be cunning, diligently, direct, discern, eloquent, feel, inform, instruct, have intelligence, know, look well to, mark, perceive, be prudent, regard, (can) skill (-ful), teach, think, (cause, make to, get, give, have) understand (-ing), view, (deal) wise (-ly, man). It has a total of 169 KJV occurrences.
We find a few examples in the following verses:
Job 6:24 – “Teach me and I will be silent; make me understand how I have gone astray.”
Job 13:1 – “Behold, my eye has seen all this, my ear has heard and understood it.”
Proverbs 1:5 – “Let the wise hear and increase in learning, and the one who understands obtain guidance.”
Proverbs 14:15 – “The simple believes everything, but the prudent gives thought to his steps.”
Proverbs 20:24 – “A man’s steps are from the LORD, how then can he understand his way?”
Proverbs 28:5 – “Evil men do not understand justice, but those who seek the LORD understand it completely.”
One New Testament Greek word for ‘understand’ is G4920 – συνίημι – suniēmi (soon-ee’-ay-mee); From G4862 and ἵημι hiēmi (to send); to put together, that is, (mentally) to comprehend; by implication to act piously: – consider, understand, be wise. It has a total of 26 KJV occurrences.
Matthew 13:13 – “This is why I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand.”
Luke 24:45 – “Then He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures.”
Ephesians 5:17 – “Therefore do not be foolish but understand what the will of the Lord is.”
I Timothy 1:6-7 – “Certain persons…have wandered away into vain discussion, desiring to be teachers of the law, without understanding either what they are saying or the things about which they make confident assertions.”
This is why it is so important to go back for a second, even third or fourth, look. We need to stop being so quick to judgment. Like James instructs us, we must be “quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath” (James 1:19). John 7:24 in the BBE states, “let not your decisions be based on what you see, but on righteousness,” and in the ERV, “stop judging by the way things look. Be fair and judge by what is really right,” and in the TPT, “stop judging based on the superficial. First you must embrace the standards of mercy and truth.”
Moral of the Day: go back and reconsider, seek to understand, ask God for wisdom to understand.
James 1:5 “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him.”