Making Sense of Things

When I was young and just starting to work with carpentry tools and building materials, I used to fret at the sizes and dimensions of lumber. Why was a 2 x 4 actually three and one-half inches by one and one-half inches? Or a 2 x 6 actually five and one-half inches by one and one-half inches? Why, for that matter, was a sheet of plywood sold at four feet by eight feet? Why not ten by five, instead? The “strange” sizes did not evenly divide into a decimal system (as American money, for example), and I could not understand why things were the way that they were. After a great deal of time with a large dose of experience, things began to make more sense. The principles behind the long-accepted specifications began to reveal themselves. Human capacity was involved (a five by ten sheet of plywood weighs considerably more, therefore is harder to handle. The average height of a ceiling is seven and one-half feet to eight feet, which is better accommodated by a four by eight sheet.) It was interesting, instructive, and humbling to discover the inherent wisdom in the system.

As I began to understand, I could apply my new comprehension to the projects I had to do. Now, I could see that it was better to design a building around, say, a eight foot width and a sixteen foot length, than a nine or ten foot width and a fourteen or fifteen foot length. I could utilize my understanding of the building material specifications to advantage.

The same reasoning applies to the “specifications,” or principles of spiritual things. It has taken mankind a long time to realize that it is better for a human leader in government to occupy that office for only a relatively short period of time, such as four years or eight, etc., because the pressures and temptations that come with position are not good for the governor or the governed most of the time. The Lord governed the children of Israel through judges according to this principle, raising up leaders as needed, and establishing no human line of succession. He did not even establish a maximum period of time for them to govern, utilizing some of them for the rest of their lives from the point where He established them. When human reasoning and expectation promoted the sons of the judges to the same authority, the system began to fail. When the people rejected God in that capacity and asked for a king, it left them at disadvantage.

Men prosper according to the amount of divine wisdom that they build in their lives. All of the fundamental laws of morality that are adopted by unsaved people benefit them, inasmuch as they are able to observe and do them. The more you build your life on right things, the better off you will be; although this will not save you, nor will you be able to really get a hold of these things and keep them as you could if you were in touch with God and empowered, protected, and inspired by Him. But they will do you much good and keep you from many things that would make your life lower and degenerate. The more that people live to what light and understanding that they have, the better off they are, and the better the possibility that they will follow on to know the Lord, be born again, and then “walk in the light, as he is in the light.”* (1 John 1:7) For “the path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day. The way of the wicked is as darkness: they know not at what they stumble.”* (Proverbs 4:18-19)