Because I Said So: I Am the Lord
Scripture Leviticus 19
Observation
Throughout this chapter God gives various rules for the people to follow. Many of these rules seem to be arbitrary. Some make a degree of sense, and others seem completely unimportant. For example, verses 23-28 say not to harvest any fruit from a tree until the fourth year, and not to eat any until the 5th. In verse 27 it says not to round off the side-growth of beards, or get tattoos. etc...
23 ‘When you enter the land and plant all kinds of trees for food, then you shall count their fruit as forbidden. Three years it shall be forbidden to you; it shall not be eaten. 24 But in the fourth year all its fruit shall be holy, an offering of praise to the Lord. 25 In the fifth year you are to eat of its fruit, that its yield may increase for you; I am the Lord your God.
26 ‘You shall not eat anything with the blood, nor practice divination or soothsaying. 27 You shall not round off the side-growth of your heads nor harm the edges of your beard. 28 You shall not make any cuts in your body for the dead nor make any tattoo marks on yourselves: I am the Lord.
All of these laws end with the same phrase "I am the Lord."It happens twelve times in this chapter (Maybe more, I counted quickly.)
God does not explain himself. He is God and he says so. If I think one of his commands is unimportant, or "minor," or something, that is me passing judgement on God's law. I am not in a position to do that. He knows I am going to question him. He knows that is the natural human reaction to rules we don't like. We will question it and we will pass judgement on things we don't like. But God answers those questions "I am the Lord." I doubt these laws made much more sense to the people of Israel back then, than they do now. But it isn't our job to make them make sense.
Application
I need to stop demanding God make sense to me and answer all my questions. My job is to obey him, not argue with him about what matters and what doesn't. He gives me plenty of answers in my life, but there are other times when he simply tells me to listen and obey. I must learn to submit to him and obey, without demanding that he explain himself to me first. He is God. He says so.
Prayer
God forgive me for trying to make myself Lord, so you will answer to me. You alone are Lord. You alone make the rules and establish yourself as king. I submit to you.
Jesus
Jesus was tempted to make God work for him (Matthew 4) but did not give in. When faced with death on a cross he submitted to God without trying to weasel out of it.