“Are we making the right decision?” My question hung in the air as my husband and I drove away from the realtor’s office. After signing our names dozens of times to purchase our dream home, I was afraid I’d missed something in my hours spent scrolling Zillow. What if there’s an issue we didn’t see in the inspection? What if I missed a better house in my search? What if I don’t know enough about this area of town?
Instead of celebrating this milestone for our family, I spent the day grinding my teeth in worry over the unknown. I reread our inspector’s report, scrutinized pictures of the house, and reviewed my research about the local school system—trying to reassure myself I hadn’t missed anything. I felt that if I gathered enough knowledge, I could be confident we made the right decision.
When I face suffering, doubt, or uncertainty, I’m tempted to believe that the more information I have, the more I can control the situation. I surrender my heart and mind to the pursuit of understanding in the futile hope that the idol of knowledge will save me from my worries.
Craving Self-Sufficient Knowledge
I’m not the first to idolize knowledge. In the garden, the serpent tempted Eve with the lie that more knowledge would make her more like God. She’d be able to make decisions on her own rather than trust in her all-knowing Creator (Gen. 3:5). Eve ate the fruit, craving the ability to make herself wise and to control her own life (v. 6).
When I face suffering, doubt, or uncertainty, I’m tempted to believe that the more information I have, the more I can control the situation.
The tempter whispers the same lies in my ears as I keep multiple tabs open on my browser, searching for answers to the anxieties of my heart. Like Eve, I believe that if I know more, I won’t need God—I’ll be like him instead. So I turn to another book, podcast, or social media influencer to gain enough knowledge to ease my worries. But it never satisfies.
The pursuit of knowledge isn’t sinful in itself. Scripture encourages us to grow in our knowledge, especially knowledge of God and his Word (2 Pet. 3:18). However, knowledge becomes an idol when we start to believe more understanding will make us self-sufficient.
God’s Omniscience Is Better
God’s omniscience is one of his incommunicable attributes—a characteristic that belongs to him alone. As image-bearers, we’re called to imitate God’s love, kindness, and grace, but we can never attain God’s all-knowing nature. While I’ve striven for knowledge at critical times in my life—researching a novel virus, adopting our third child, or facing hardship in my marriage—I ultimately found greater comfort in God’s knowledge than in my own.
Recently, I lay in a dimly lit room, staring at grainy black and white images and hoping for answers to a medical issue. I scrutinized the ultrasound technician’s face for any clues on what she was seeing, yet her forehead remained creased in ambiguous concentration. My fingers itched to search the internet for possible answers, but my phone lay on the other side of the room.
Instead, my mind rested on a psalm I’d studied earlier that morning: “O LORD, you have searched me and known me!” (Ps. 139:1). Even when I didn’t know what was going on in my body, I could trust God, who knows everything around me and within me. When my knowledge fails, his is limitless. How could I not cry out with David, “Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high; I cannot attain it” (v. 6).
When I acknowledge the limits of my ability to understand a diagnosis, to plan for the future, or to research the right option for our family, I can trust in my Creator who knows all things and intimately knows me.
His Peace Surpasses Our Understanding
When Paul wrote to the church in Philippi—filled with believers struggling with the unknowns of suffering—he exhorted them to take their anxieties to the Lord. As they did, Paul explained that “the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 4:7). A Google search, test result, or helpful podcast can be a useful tool. But it cannot protect our hearts and minds from anxiety. Instead, when we place our faith in our all-knowing God, we’ll experience peace beyond anything we could understand.
I found greater comfort in God’s knowledge than in my own.
God calls us not to ignore knowledge or to idolize it but to be good stewards of it (Prov. 18:15). When we pick up a book to inform a difficult decision, we can trust the Holy Spirit will use it to guide our paths. When we research a diagnosis on the internet, we can praise God for the common grace he’s given to us in medical professionals. When we read the news in preparation for the future, we can rest assured that nothing surprises God.
At the end of the day, we can put down the book, close the web browser, and stop scrolling our news feed. Our comfort comes not from the knowledge we hold in our hands but from the omniscient God who holds us in his.
Involved in Women’s Ministry? Add This to Your Discipleship Toolkit
We need one another. Yet we don’t always know how to develop deep relationships to help us grow in the Christian life. Younger believers benefit from the guidance and wisdom of more mature saints as their faith deepens. But too often, potential mentors lack clarity and training on how to engage in discipling those they can influence.
Whether you’re longing to find a spiritual mentor or hoping to serve as a guide for someone else, we have a FREE resource to encourage and equip you. In Growing Together: Taking Mentoring Beyond Small Talk and Prayer Requests, Melissa Kruger, TGC’s vice president of discipleship programming, offers encouraging lessons to guide conversations that promote spiritual growth in both the mentee and mentor.
