“The Lord is extending the Saints’ understanding,” (William W. Phelps, “The Spirit Of God”). There are three main definitions of the word extend. To extend can mean to cause to stretch or expand to cover a larger area or to last longer. To extend can also mean to offer or make available or hold something out to someone. And to extend can also mean to exert yourself to the utmost. The Lord can extend our understanding in all three ways. Sometimes the best thing for us is for God to extend understanding to us by offering us light and knowledge like a bolt of lightning out of a clear blue sky. When we are struggling and heartbroken and utterly lost, having the Lord visit us and open our eyes so that we can see things through His perspective can be a real blessing. But sometimes we don't need the whole thing handed to us. We are on the right track but we just need to stretch a little more. As we seek to do our Father's will and submit with patience and humility to His timing, He will expand our understanding and broaden and deepen our knowledge. And then occasionally we are completely lost with no relief in sight and we begin to fear that God has abandoned us. He hasn't. But He wants us to exert ourselves to the utmost and extend the limits of what we can endure. When we are struggling and slogging through the mire and doing our best to figure it out on our own and abjectly failing most of the time but stubbornly striving anyway, we will have learned and grown more and will have a greater appreciation for the hard won understanding that we have obtained then we ever would have if God had merely handed it all to us. One form of extending is not necessarily better than another. We need all three at different parts in our life. But we can always trust that the Lord knows the best way to extend our understanding.
