Because God Said So

Yael Eckstein  |  November 10, 2026

Isaac stands at the edge of the land, where the ground begins to thin and give way.
The road stretches out before him. He knows where it leads.
He has heard of the place all his life. Water that does not dry up. Fields that do not wither.
Behind him, the wells give little. The wind carries only dust.
It would not be hard to go.
Others have gone. He has watched them leave. He has never seen them return.
He looks again down the road.
It waits for him. It calls to him. A way out.
Stay.
He turns the word over in his mind.
There are many reasons to leave. And they come easily, one after another.
Stay.
He does not move.
The wind passes over him, dry and thin.
The land remains as it is.
Nothing changes.
Still, Isaac stands there.
And he stays.

Genesis 26:3

Stay in this land for a while, and I will be with you and will bless you. For to you and your descendants I will give all these lands and will confirm the oath I swore to your father Abraham.

Have you ever tried the old “because I said so” argument with your children?

I don’t know about you, but my children aren’t big fans of it. And I wasn’t either when I was a kid. “Because I said so” doesn’t sound like a reason. It sounds like a refusal to explain—or worse, like there is no reason at all. And that can feel frustrating.

But there’s something deeper behind those words.

When a parent says, “Because I said so,” what they’re really saying is this: Trust me. Trust our relationship. They are asking their child to obey not because the child understands every reason—but because they trust the one giving the instruction.

The same is true in our relationship with God.

We all want God to speak to us. We long for His guidance. We want to know His will. But the struggle often comes when we also demand to know why.

We see this tension in today’s Scripture.

When Isaac faced a famine, he naturally looked toward Egypt—the logical place to go in a time of hunger. But God stopped him and said, “Do not go down to Egypt. Stay in the land that I will show you.”

God could have explained His rationale, but He didn’t.

Instead, God simply said, “Stay.”

God wanted Isaac to listen—not for Isaac to understand His plan, but because Isaac trusted the One who made it.

When we choose to follow God even when His plan doesn’t make sense, we show that we have faith and trust in Him—because “because I said so” is an invitation to trust.One More Moment

One More Moment

Join us for a new season of Nourish Your Biblical Roots: Holy Land Digs! Across eight episodes, we’ll explore Israel’s biblical sites and uncover the stories hidden beneath the soil.