Maybe...

I desire to understand things, the why’s of life, why God answers some prayers and not others (or does he really answer all of them, we just don’t like his answers?), and why bad things happen to good people.

So here we go, searching for “understanding” in the Bible.

The first mention of the word “understand” is in Genesis 11.

Now the whole world had one language and a common speech… “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth.”  But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower the people were building. The Lord said, “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them.  Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.”  So the Lord scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city. That is why it was called Babel—because there the Lord confused the language of the whole world. From there the Lord scattered them over the face of the whole earth.

What a story!

People wanted to make a name for themselves, and build themselves a city…to exalt what THEY were doing.

That sort of scenario is never a good thing, because what we build and what we boast about never stands firm.

God stopped the process, not because he’s mean, but because they were setting up their own demise.

He took away their understanding of each other.

Maybe, just maybe…when we don’t understand…it’s because our motives and schemes are in the way.  And maybe, just maybe…the destruction of what we’re building is really a blessing in disguise…so that God can be exalted and our lives can be blessed.