God says He wants us to understand and yet at other times he says to give up our understanding and to quit trying to figure everything out. How can both be truth? How do we understand what He means?
This could turn into a larger discussion of God’s use of fine distinctions vs broad, variable, and multiple meanings of the words He uses. He actually considers English a very good language in many respects, although with some serious limitations in certain areas. In other words, He uses language in much the same way we do. However, in this case the difference between understanding and understanding is not that difficult. God makes a distinction between what He calls understanding of being and rational understanding.
Understanding of being is knowing what you know because of who you are. It is not facts, it is not academic knowledge, it is the accumulation of your life experiences based on what God created as “you”. This is knowing that you know, not thinking that you know. This kind of understanding is hard to develop, hard to change, and hard to destroy. This does not mean that this understanding is based in truth, just that it is firmly founded.
Rational understanding is fundamentally academic and logical. It is the conceptual structure we each have constructed to explain how thing work, how they change, and how things are related. When we use the word “understanding” this is almost always what we are talking about. Even though God says not to lean to our own understanding (Proverbs 3:5) we do it anyway. Figuring it out, some would even call it seeking truth, is fundamentally a losing proposition because all of our understanding is based in deception.
Deception is any combination of truth and error. No matter the ratio it is still deception. Almost every lie contains some truth or it would not be believable. The whole world, in every aspect, is cleverly designed to deceive, and every single human has fallen victim to deception to one degree or another.
Satan has built an elaborate, interlocking web of deception wherein pieces of truth are surrounded by and linked by lies and half truths. Everyone who devotes themselves to exposing deception is operating in deception, just in a different place. This is the great genius of Satan’s plan. No matter where you are, and no matter how hard you try, you can only expose deception with other deception.
There is only one way out; seek pure truth without deception. This is not only very difficult, it has never been done since Adam’s fall. To do this you must remove yourself from the field of deception and adopt an entirely different point of view. Instead of trying to separate truth from error seek the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
To seek pure truth from that new point of view you must recognize the foundational lie upon which the whole structure of deception is based. That lie is recorded in Genesis chapter 3 “you will not surely die”, and virtually the entirety of humanity believes it to this day. The truth is that sin and death are inseparability linked. They were born together and they will die together (Revelation 20&21). You cannot understand life if you do not understand death – and this lack of understanding distorts everything; all philosophy, all religion, all social structures, all values, even natural sciences – absolutely everything.
Come out of deception and false understanding of death and recognize God’s offer of life for what it really is – life as opposed to death, not life in one place (heaven) as opposed to life in another (hell).
Understand life.