I was a young teen, bursting with questions about the God I was just discovering. George was a fireman and a man of faith attempting to explain the infinite to the few youth of our tiny church. The others accepted the beautiful truths they had been brought up in, but I, a new believer, had questions. Lots of them. Finally, inevitably, he would remove his glasses and rub his forehead. “I don’t know, Andy,” he’d chuckle. “Deuteronomy 29:29”.

The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law.

Deuteronomy 29:29

The Bible is immensely practical. It explains life—and really, what other book can make that claim? It tells us about God and also about ourselves. It counsels us on how to live well, and gives perspective far below the surface of our troubles and struggles. It offers hope and the way to deep transformation.

Unfortunately, though, I’ve seen some people become so fascinated by the Bible that they overlook its Author.

I’m studying the Bible with a young woman right now, and the guide we use is extremely thorough. Unlike George, the authors provide answers for seemingly every question. Mysteries are few. Questions are answered, boxes checked. And yet…I wonder.

I’m not sure if there is a single reference to Deuteronomy 29:29 in all of its 477 pages.

It’s tempting to try to get God pinned down in a way that he becomes predictable. Tame. But in the process, we forget that this is a being who exists outside of time and every dimension we can imagine.

The farther our telescopes can discern, the deeper and more complex the universe unfolds. The smaller our microscopes can magnify, the more intricacies they discover. This is not a God who can be contained within the boundaries of our comprehension.

We long for understanding. For answers. And God has given us answers, insight, and knowledge, for sure. We have all that we need, and far more than we will ever be able to define, just in this one book. But we must remember that having all that we need to know is far less than knowing all that there actually is. And too often our neatly-defined answers speak more of our need for control than anything else.

He is the God beyond all boundaries, who has humbled himself to our restricted existence out of a love so immense that we struggle to describe it. But the fact that God submitted himself to our boundaries for a few years, does not mean that we can now define the infinite.

Christmas is the truth of God becoming visible. Touchable. Easter seals the offer of life beyond this earth. And yet, we must realize that we can only know in part. The mirror is yet dim on this side of glory.

Faith is not faith if we have all the answers. Faith believes in the solid truth of something beyond our vision. It calls us to cast ourselves into an adventure of both the known and the as yet unknown. Are we willing? Can we admit that there are secret things beyond our vision? That there is more to this God than what we can define?

It used to frustrate me when George fell back on Deuteronomy 29:29. But now, I see the wisdom of it. And I understand that the humility to accept that is the correction we need when pride in our knowledge starts to snuff out the wonder of what we can’t yet comprehend.

Someday we’ll know the secret things that our mortality can’t fathom. “Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known”, as the Apostle Paul explained it.

But for now, it’s okay to rest in wonder. Because wonder, in the end, is worship.