…If you will go forth and surrender to the princes of the king of Babylon, then you will live and this city will not be burned with fire…But if you will not go forth and surrender to the princes of the king of Babylon, then this city will be given into the hands of the Chaldeans and they will burn it with fire; and you will not escape… – Jeremiah 38:1-18, Amplified Bible (AMP)

Imagine that you are walking in a bad section of town at night, and you notice a small band of gang members following you along the sidewalk. You speed up your pace, looking for some way to lose them. Unfortunately, you make a wrong turn, and you find yourself trapped in a dark alley with no way of escape. You turn around, and sure enough, the gang members have followed you into the alley. You know they mean to hurt you – maybe even kill you. What would you do? Would you fight? Would you surrender? My guess is that most people would choose to fight, thinking that surrender would mean death anyway, so why not try to punch your way to survival?

King Zedekiah faced this same choice when the Chaldeans, rather than gang members, had him and his people trapped inside the walls of Jerusalem. Zedekiah chose to fight, thinking that nothing good could come from surrender. But Zedekiah had some reliable information that the person in the dark alley would not; he had a direct revelation from God that surrender, not battle, was the pathway to survival, peace, and prosperity. Sadly, Zedekiah did not trust God’s revelation, for God’s pathway to success was in direct opposition to everything that human wisdom was telling him. His lack of faith cost him and his people dearly, just like lack of trust in God’s Word always costs us pain and suffering.

Human wisdom and God’s wisdom usually point in different directions. Of course, it makes perfect sense to trust the advice of the all-knowing Creator of the universe. Yet, for some reason, we make the poor choice of trusting human wisdom most of the time. Each time we do, we shouldn’t be surprised when things don’t go well. We can save ourselves a lot of trouble if we will replace the habit of human trust with the habit of trusting God, no matter how insane His advice may seem to our earthly minds. Had Zedekiah dared to trust God, his sons would not have been murdered before his eyes, his eyesight would not have been put out, and his city would not have been burned. Likewise, we could have avoided so much pain and suffering in our pasts if we had just listened to God in the first place. Thankfully, God continues to urge us to learn the habit of heavenly trust, and today is just as good a day as any to finally respond to His prodding.