Common is the sentiment among recent college graduates, "I went in feeling like I knew so much, and leave realizing how little I know." I remember what this felt like, walking down the aisle to accept my diploma, wondering at the irony. Yet as uncomfortable as that moment of recognition can be, I am convinced that the thought is an important place to linger.
Ravi Zacharias tells of being a graduate student when the new encyclopedia Britannica was released in its fifteenth edition. It was a massive work that had taken fourteen years to produce, and he was fascinated by the statistics: two hundred advisors, three hundred editors, four thousand contributors, over a hundred thousand entries, thirty-four million dollars, forty-three million words. Even so, in the last pages of that work, one of the editors had the audacity to conclude, "Herein contains the entirety of human knowledge."
It strikes me as absolutely fascinating that again and again in the Scriptures we are confronted with men and women who, having come in contact God, find themselves blown away by the notion that they didn't know all that they didn't know. Jacob had a dream in which God appeared above a great ladder introducing Himself to Jacob as the God of his ancestors. When Jacob awakes, his first words are filled with astonishment, "Surely the LORD is in this place, and I was not aware of it" (Genesis 28:16). Hagar, the maidservant of Sarah, had a similar reaction after she encountered God in the desert. Having run away from Sarah, Hagar was resting beside a spring when God spoke to her and told her to return. Scripture imparts that she was amazed: "And she gave this name to the LORD who spoke to her: 'You are the God who sees me,' for she said, 'I have now seen the One who sees me'" (Genesis 16:13).
Christian philosopher Esther Lightcap Meek writes, "We labor under the misimpression that we see what we see, that seeing is believing, that either I see it or I don't."(1) Though we may not see God clearly, the Scriptures reveal that He makes Himself known to us again and again, in order that we might know Him. This is the God we find throughout the Scriptures! Whether in Jacob's dream or in Hagar's distress, God seeks to be known and to make Himself known. "O LORD," proclaims David, "for your servant's sake and according to your own heart, you have done all this greatness, in making known all these great things. There is none like you, O LORD, and there is no God besides you, according to all that we have heard with our ears" (1 Chronicles 17:19,20, ESV).
There is something vital in knowing that there is much that we do not know. It keeps us grounded in reality. It keeps us looking to the one who wills to be known. Says the LORD, "Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know" (Jeremiah 33:3).
A.W. Tozer writes, "At the heart of the Christian message is God Himself waiting for his redeemed Children to push in to conscious awareness of his presence." When Job was confronted with the great thunder of 62 questions from God about the foundations of the world and the inner workings of life, Job realized that he had spoken out of turn. Confronting the reality of all that he did not know brought Job to a deeper certainty of God. "My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you" (Job 42:5). Might our lives echo a similar cry. Might our eyes see the one who sees us.
(1) Esther Lightcap Meek, Longing to Know: The Philosophy of Knowledge for Ordinary People (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2003), 99.
Ravi Zacharias tells of being a graduate student when the new encyclopedia Britannica was released in its fifteenth edition. It was a massive work that had taken fourteen years to produce, and he was fascinated by the statistics: two hundred advisors, three hundred editors, four thousand contributors, over a hundred thousand entries, thirty-four million dollars, forty-three million words. Even so, in the last pages of that work, one of the editors had the audacity to conclude, "Herein contains the entirety of human knowledge."
It strikes me as absolutely fascinating that again and again in the Scriptures we are confronted with men and women who, having come in contact God, find themselves blown away by the notion that they didn't know all that they didn't know. Jacob had a dream in which God appeared above a great ladder introducing Himself to Jacob as the God of his ancestors. When Jacob awakes, his first words are filled with astonishment, "Surely the LORD is in this place, and I was not aware of it" (Genesis 28:16). Hagar, the maidservant of Sarah, had a similar reaction after she encountered God in the desert. Having run away from Sarah, Hagar was resting beside a spring when God spoke to her and told her to return. Scripture imparts that she was amazed: "And she gave this name to the LORD who spoke to her: 'You are the God who sees me,' for she said, 'I have now seen the One who sees me'" (Genesis 16:13).
Christian philosopher Esther Lightcap Meek writes, "We labor under the misimpression that we see what we see, that seeing is believing, that either I see it or I don't."(1) Though we may not see God clearly, the Scriptures reveal that He makes Himself known to us again and again, in order that we might know Him. This is the God we find throughout the Scriptures! Whether in Jacob's dream or in Hagar's distress, God seeks to be known and to make Himself known. "O LORD," proclaims David, "for your servant's sake and according to your own heart, you have done all this greatness, in making known all these great things. There is none like you, O LORD, and there is no God besides you, according to all that we have heard with our ears" (1 Chronicles 17:19,20, ESV).
There is something vital in knowing that there is much that we do not know. It keeps us grounded in reality. It keeps us looking to the one who wills to be known. Says the LORD, "Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know" (Jeremiah 33:3).
A.W. Tozer writes, "At the heart of the Christian message is God Himself waiting for his redeemed Children to push in to conscious awareness of his presence." When Job was confronted with the great thunder of 62 questions from God about the foundations of the world and the inner workings of life, Job realized that he had spoken out of turn. Confronting the reality of all that he did not know brought Job to a deeper certainty of God. "My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you" (Job 42:5). Might our lives echo a similar cry. Might our eyes see the one who sees us.
(1) Esther Lightcap Meek, Longing to Know: The Philosophy of Knowledge for Ordinary People (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2003), 99.
by Jill Carattini
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