“Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out! For who has known the mind of the LORD?” – Romans 12:33-34

A man once asked Harvey, his seven-year old son, if he knew the Pacific Ocean.

Harvey proudly answered in the affirmative and indeed brought an atlas to show his dad that he knew the ocean. “Good boy,” the father said.

During the summer holiday, the family traveled to the shores of the Pacific Ocean.  Harvey swam and played in the waters of the great ocean.

Harvey met some of the old fishermen on their large boats on the ocean.  However, he was surprised when all the fishermen told his dad that they also knew very little about the great Ocean.

At the end of the trip, Harvey’s dad took him to a famous research station to meet a great marine scientist who had spent all his life studying the great Ocean.

To his great surprise, Harvey was informed by the marine scientist that he also knew very little about that great ocean, that only less than 40% of the ocean’s marine life had been fully explored and that it would be many decades before the ocean would be fully surveyed and explored.

On the way home, Harvey’s father asked him again if he knew the Pacific Ocean. “No Dad; no one knows the Pacific Ocean,” Harvey replied.

In our meditation today, Paul puts himself in Harvey’s place.

Your love, LORD, reaches to the heavens, Your faithfulness to the skies. Your righteousness is like the highest mountains, Your justice like the great [ocean].”

PSALM 36:5-6

Of course this Paul was trained as a Pharisee and was well-versed with the Jewish religion.

He got converted in dramatic fashion when he got a vision of Christ on the road to Damascus.

He was taken to the seventh heaven where he saw things that he said he could not put into words.

This same Paul wrote more than half of the books of the New Testament.  He performed miracles that no one else performed.

However, Paul still regarded himself as knowing nothing when it came to Christ!

He still craved to know Him and power of His resurrection (Philippians 3:10).

He stated that the love of Christ is beyond knowledge (Ephesians 4:19).

Now, if Paul at his level of spirituality still craved for the knowledge of God, who are you to boast about knowing ‘enough’ of Him?

Even the apostle John, Christ’s closest disciple, could not stand before His splendor in the vision of His Revelation.  

In Psalm 36:5-6, David sang of the infiniteness of four of God’s many attributes: “Your love, LORD, reaches to the heavens, Your faithfulness to the skies. Your righteousness is like the highest mountains, your justice like the great [ocean].”

Our attitude to the things of God should be one of absolute humility. Until we get to heaven, we shall never get to know enough of His character and truth.

Like research, the little we get to know about God is like a drop in the Pacific Ocean, which should simply add to the Church’s body of knowledge, for indeed “we know only in part” (1 Cor. 13:9).

May every day present an opportunity to get a little more knowledge of Him.

Prayer:

Almighty God, my desire is to know You more and more. Open my heart to know more of Your loving kindness and truth, and to make You known to the nations. For the glory of your Name, Amen!