Christian Living

---

Interestingly enough, there are two well-known comments on this condition. Pre-eminent is the one spoken by God through the Prophet Isaiah:
"For My thouhts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts." Isaiah 55:8,9

Then there is this quote from Shakespeare's Hamlet, "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of." There is a dimension so far beyond the limits of our finite minds' comprehension that it is even out of the reach of our dreams. It is an humbling fact, and one we do not always take to gracefully.

No matter how hard we try, or the lengths to which we will go, we will never understand all the things and how they operate in heaven and on earth to the extent the Creator does. It is at once an humbling thought and a freeing one. One of the things God knows (and we sometimes do not!) is our limitations, so He has no unrealistic expectations about our capacity to understand. But what we do have is an innate capacity to recognize our limitations without its diminishing our faith. Faith does not rest on knowledge of hows and whys, but rests on acknowledging and obeying the One who does know everything about everything. All we need to know is that there is a God who holds the keys of knowledge of things in heaven and on earth because He created them and us. Put simply, we are sheep of His pasture. We depend entirely on Him to lead us by still waters, fill our needs and finally take us home when our short day is spent. Can you imagine a sheep running forward to the shepherd, demanding to know why the grass is green, the sky is blue, or questioning the path the shepherd has chosen?

God is not honored when we spend time and money and get into ivory tower arguments over things we cannot know. He has made it possible for us to ascertain what we need to know, but there are myriad things that operate outside the human sphere. When God sees our frustration at not being able to explain everything, I wonder if He might be moved to ask, "Why would you want to know?"

It would be well for us just to relax and follow the Shepherd. He knows where He is going. He wants devoted followers, not curious children demanding answers to all the whys and hows. The fact that we do not know the answer does not mean for a minute that there isn't one.

---

PLEASE ENCOURAGE AUTHOR BELOW LEAVE COMMENT ON ARTICLE