“Daddy, why did God make rain?” Now this one I could answer. I replied, “One reason is that rain helps the plants and flowers grow.” “Ooooohhh!” she replied. Now, this was not new to her. We’ve talked about it before. But I’ve learned that many of her questions are not asked out of a desire to gain knowledge. She knows why rain is important to plants. Instead, she asked the question in order to be reassured of what she already knows. And she asked so that she could be reassured that I knew the answer.
A clear example of this occurred a couple of weeks ago. While driving to the Darlington Co. Relay for Life, she asked, “Daddy, do you know where we are?” “Yes, Micah, I know where we are,” I replied. Fast forward 17 seconds… “Dad, now do you know where we are?” “Yes, sweetie…” I said as I told her both our current location and our destination. She repeated the question a few more times before she was satisfied.
Later, as I pondered over her questions, I realized that Micah is at an age where she wants to know everything about what’s going on around her, and she wants to be a part of every conversation, no matter the subject. And yet she is still young enough to not be able to really understand adult conversations (or tall enough to see out of the backseat!). Then a profound thought hit me:
When your viewpoint is always from the backseat, it’s good to know that the driver knows where he’s going.
For Micah, the quest for knowledge and understanding begins with trust. One morning recently she told me, “Daddy, I think I’ll understand that when I’m 16.” I smiled and tried to reassure her that it’s ok not to understand as long as you know someone who does.
Like many lessons that my children are learning these days, the instruction does not cease when we leave childhood. As adults, we have much greater capacity for knowledge and understanding, but there are still some very real and often very frustrating limits to our comprehension. Try as we might, we will never fully understand everything about the world around us. Most of us, for instance, probably have no clue as to exactly how the air we breathe interacts with our blood to sustain our lives. Likewise, while we all feel its effect, very few of us are likely able to fully explain how earth’s gravitational field keeps us from floating up into space. More personally, we may never truly understand why bad things happen to good people (or vice versa). Or why some people seem to be blessed more than others. Or how is it that, no matter what checkout line we choose at Wal-Mart, the other lines will move faster?
And should we try to understand God, our limitations are only magnified. How is it, for instance, that Jesus can be both fully God and fully man? Or, more to the point, how can one God be three distinct persons simultaneously? And how is it that a perfect and fully righteous God could love such unlovely and detestable sinners like us?
When faced with the limits of our own understanding, it is vital that we remember the lesson that Micah is learning now:
Trust the One who knows the answers.
Our God is omniscient (all-knowing). He knows our limitations. He is aware of our challenges. He recognizes our weakness. But, He also knows the plans that He has for us, “plans to prosper [us] and not to harm [us], plans to give [us] a hope and a future…” (Jeremiah 29:11). Our role is to always trust, not to always understand.
The problem is that this sort of absolute trust is really, really difficult for us. It gnaws against our “pull-yourself-up-by-your-own-bootstraps” mentality which is applauded and encouraged by our culture. Every one of us loves control. We like to control what we do, where we go, and how we do both. To give up control is an offence to our selfish natures. Yet we all recognize that proper control requires knowledge and understanding (which is why we don’t let four-year-olds drive cars!). And if we’re honest with ourselves, we have to admit that we’re sorely lacking in both knowledge and understanding – and we also have to admit that, ultimately, we’re not really in control at all.
So, at the start of each new day, we’re faced with a choice: Do we persist in our selfish ignorance by clamoring for control of our lives? Or will we place our trust in the One who actually is in control (and who knows all there is to know)? In other words, as long as we’re in this world, our knowledge and understanding will be limited. We will always be stuck in the backseat, forced to either pretend to have control, or to trust the One who actually does. My prayer is that we all might “trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your understanding; In all your ways submit to Him and He will make your paths straight.” (Proverbs 3:5-6)
Soli Deo Gloria
Tim Cotten
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