Knowing vs. Doing

Judges 14:3
His father and mother replied, “Isn't there an acceptable woman among your relatives or among all our people? Must you go to the uncircumcised Philistines to get a wife?’”
But Samson said to his father, “Get her for me. She's the right one for me.”


Samson knew what he wanted, and he thought he knew what he needed. But Samson was a human, and we humans have this awful habit of wanting things that aren’t good for us. We also have a tendency to know the right thing, yet refuse to act upon that right thing.

Situations requiring us to act occur many times everyday. Situations as easily solved as where you want to go for lunch. These situations usually don’t have a defined “right” or “wrong” answer. However, there are situations with right answers as variables.

Samson was an imperfect human being, just like we are. He was an immensely strong human, but still a human. That means he made a lot of the same mistakes we do. Probably one of the most common mistakes made by our species is the mistake of knowing the right thing, and not doing the right thing.

We often know the exact answer to a problem, yet we don’t act upon this answer. We tell ourselves we don’t want to step on any toes. Our answer might offend someone: we wouldn’t want that, now would we? So we refuse to act upon the right thing, thinking we’ll keep ourselves out of trouble that way. But guess what? Not acting upon what we know is right is just as much of a sin as acting upon what we know is wrong. The only remedy for this apathy is to seek the presence of God to gain a better understanding of what is right, and then allowing the Holy Spirit to convict us to do the right thing and act upon that truth.

Prayer: Lord, I pray we would seek time with You. I pray that You would expand our wisdom and knowledge of what is right. I pray that You would send Your Spirit to fill us and set us on fire with a holy conviction to act upon Your truth.

Madelyn Leembruggen