Living in a Reality I Can’t Fully See
Living in a veiled reality means I need help traveling through it. I need Someone who can see to lead me.
How can I trust the God I can’t see to lead me through a reality I can’t see?
Maybe the answer begins with knowing who He is, so I can decide whose “eyes” to trust—mine or His.
As I wrote that sentence, two things immediately came to mind. The first was the fear of the Lord.
Scripture says,
“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.”
I’ve spent a lot of time studying the fear of the Lord, and I’ve come to believe it isn’t primarily about being afraid of God.
Instead, I think it’s worshipful respect born from an awareness of God’s power, wisdom, and authority—leading us to trust and submit to Him as we recognize our own limitations.
If that’s true, then the fear of the Lord becomes the foundation for trusting God to lead me through what I can’t see.
The second part of the verse caught my attention too:
“…the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.”
The kind of knowledge Scripture is describing is relational. It grows as we come to know God and His truth through His Word.
And in Scripture, understanding is the ability to interpret reality according to God’s truth—to see more and more as He sees.
If I’m going to follow Someone through a reality I can’t fully see, I need to trust Him—and I need to know His truth well enough to recognize it.
Then another passage came to mind.
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways know Him, and He will make your paths straight.”
(Literal sense of Proverbs 3:5–6)
Our English translations often say, “submit to Him” or “acknowledge Him.” But the underlying Hebrew verb is yadaʿ—the same rich word often translated “know.”
That fascinated me.
In modern English, we tend to separate knowing someone from submitting to them.
But in Proverbs, the ideas are intertwined.
The invitation isn’t simply to obey a distant authority.
It’s to know Him—to be in a relationship with Him—and involve Him in every area of life.
It’s here that I learn to trust His understanding over my own and follow His lead.
To put it simply:
The fear of the Lord teaches me that I need God’s perspective.
Knowing Him teaches me that His perspective is trustworthy.
Trust leads me to rely on His understanding instead of my own.
And as I walk with Him, I learn to see reality more as He sees it.
A transformed way of seeing will transform my way of living.
What does this look like in daily life?
Maybe Jesus answered that question with two simple words:
“Follow Me.”
