Learning more about God
When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child. But when I grew up, I put away childish things. Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely. 1 Corinthians 13:11-12
When I was about four years old I can recall being very confused when I met new people. I presumed that they had just been made, because I had never seen them before! I had recently realised that people die – probably because one of my grandfathers died at around that time. I came up with a theory that God took the bits of dead people and used them to make the new people that I had just met. It was all very logical and, in its way, quite impressive. It just happened to be wrong!
When we are children, our minds struggle to understand the world around us and that’s absolutely fine. But if I had told you that it is still my view that God makes people out of those who have passed away you wouldn’t think that was fine at all. You would, in your kindness, feel desperately sorry for me and, I trust, start praying for me.
Our thinking and speaking changes as we get older. Many things that were a complete mystery to us as children are no longer mysterious. But, however old we are, we are still on a journey towards understanding, as we all have a lot more to learn.
We need to draw two conclusions from this. Firstly, we need to be humble. We might know a lot, but we don’t know everything. God hasn’t revealed the whole truth to us, so
we need to look at every day as an adventure in which we learn a little more about ourselves, our world and God. And secondly, we need to be excited by the thought that one day we will understand the whole picture.
QUESTION
What new things have you learned about God over the last month?
PRAYER
Lord God our Father, thank you that you are constantly revealing more of yourself to me. Amen