Learning and Seeking

I spend a lot of time reading. I like to think and analyze. When I have the time, and sometimes even when I don’t have the time, I spend hours reading news. I try to stay up to date on what is happening in the world. It is interesting to see the various reports about what is happening in the world. There are so many reports from various corners of the globe, so many forces at work and so many theories about what produces or controls these forces. I want to understand. I want to know what is happening and to understand why. I think that on some level I believe that knowing and understanding will allow me to control or to anticipate the future.

We are driven to understand and to seek control. Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, and Mao all agreed that history was moving inexorably toward a communist utopia. They constructed a system that they felt encapsulated the scope of human history and explained why everything happened. They predicted where it was heading and then decided to cooperate with history and nudge it along towards the “inevitable” conclusion. Unfortunately, they were wrong. In the process they destroyed the lives of millions.

Scripture teaches us that humans were created in the image of God and were endowed with power and authority to be his stewards on the earth. We were meant to understand and cooperate with the movement of history. We are his ambassadors, his regents. We are co-heirs with Jesus and are Sons of God, fit to reign with Him. However, we lack perspective. We cannot possibly understand the scope of history. We do not understand where we have come from or where we are going. We were meant to be stewards not kings.

Only God created the heavens and the earth. Only He knows the end from the beginning. Only He knows what happens to each sparrow and what transpires in the hearts of presidents and prime ministers. The forces at work, both natural and human, are complex beyond our imagining. Our efforts to understand, while a noble reflection of the original design and stewardship, are also too feeble to reach the ultimate conclusions. We are dependent on Him for revelation. He has given us general revelation, the world around us, and there is much that we can comprehend if we humbly pursue right understanding, but we also need specific revelation. There are many things that we simply cannot know without the all knowing One revealing them to us. We need Him to reveal Himself to us, and we need Him to guide us into truth and to show us the way that we should walk with Him as individuals and as a community called by His name. Once we were not a people, but now we are His very body on earth. The as the body takes its orders from the head, so we must be in touch with and controlled by the Head.

We must not treat God as a principle at work in the world. We must recognize Him as a person. As much as I seek knowledge and understanding, I must seek Him even more. If I want to know truth I should pursue the Way, the Truth, and the Life. If I want to find my place in this world I must seek the One who created me and the world. Only He knows why I am here and the good purposes that He wants to accomplish through me.

He is weaving a tapestry and every life is a strand within it. Only He knows the pattern being followed and the design it will create. His aesthetic is different than ours, and the beauty is deeper and richer than we can imagine. In the end we will see His glory and our good woven together. He knows how to use the dark strands to accentuate the bright colors. He knows what He is about. We must submit to His hand and we will find joy in the journey.