Knowing the Unknowable.

 

”Canst thou by searching find out God?”

(Job 11:7) 

 

"Then shall we know, if we follow on to know the LORD: his going forth is prepared as the morning; and he shall come unto us as the rain, as the latter and former rain unto the earth"

(Hosea 6:3)

 

We live in a reality of dichotomies. Truths that beg us to recognize that God cannot be placed within a box or neatly packaged to serve our own selfish ends and prideful abilities. Ultimately God is and will always remain a mystery to us for we are the work of His hands and by the very nature of our created state we cannot fully grasp the majesty, magnitude and glory of God.

Richard Rolle (1290–1349) in his contemplation of the One true God wrote, ”Verily God is of infinite greatness, more than we can think; ... unknowable by created things; and can never be comprehended by us as He is in Himself. But even here and now, whenever the heart begins to burn with a desire for God, she is made able to receive the uncreated light and, inspired and fulfilled by the gifts of the Holy Ghost, she tastes the joys of heaven. She transcends all visible things and is raised to the sweetness of eternal life...."

God does indeed lay outside our ability to fully comprehend and yet the dichotomy remains that though we cannot know God fully we are commanded to try “Seek the Lord while He may be found, call upon Him while He is near” (Isaiah 55:6).

In fact this is the very reason we were created (Acts 17:26-28) …to seek and stretch and strain to peer into the unknown vastness which is God and try to comprehend the nature of who He is. God made man for this…to see and to savor His glory and so like the psalmist we (who are true children of God) long and pant after that which alone can satisfy the want of our souls…to know the unknowable and to live all life consumed by the fellowship of a burning heart.

 

 "O God, thou art my God; early will I seek thee: my soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is. To see thy power and thy glory, so as I have seen thee in the sanctuary... My soul followeth hard after thee: thy right hand upholdeth me."

 (Psalm 63:1,2,8)