Psalm 139:13-18
For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb, praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful. I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand. When I awake, I am still with you.
God’s knowledge is more than we can begin to fathom. I really don’t think that has changed much since David’s reverent prayer above, but it might be harder for us to see. While the scientific advancement we have observed in contemporary times is truly awe inspiring, it has also instilled in us a hubris to believe all of the answers to our questions are within our grasp. Our modern secular world nurtures in us an unquenchable thirst for certainty.
For those seeking a life in faith, uncertainty is part of the process. We need to find a way to become comfortable with mystery and not having answers for everything. “[I]f they were such that we could understand them, they wouldn’t be worth understanding. A God you understood would be less than yourself.” Flannery O’Connor, The Habit of Being
I am not entirely free of this compulsion towards certainty, but most of the time I derive comfort in the recognition that attaining a level of all-knowing is way above my pay grade and all I need to focus on is being grateful for such.
-Compton Biddle