Yes, but we have certainties

So the last 10 days I've been with friends and family in the Midwest. Most of these folks I've known for over 30 years.

As I considered how lives have unfolded, I was struck by this thought:

I still didn't know anything.

There they all were: business executives, doctors, musicians, lawyers, nurses, farmers (I'm talking 800 acres), nutritionists, financial people. From wedding reception to backyard barbecue to hitting golf balls ...

... to visiting the prison where The Shawshank Redemption was filmed, I kept having this thought: For some strange reason, compared to the others ...

... I just didn't feel like I knew anything.

What exactly is knowledge? How does having that knowledge shape our lives? What is the difference between having knowledge and having a skill?

Why is it that in almost everything we did I felt like I was outside the body of knowledge that would allow me to really understand that thing?

On the last day of our travels, we went to the Ann Arbor Art Fair on the campus of the University of Michigan, where I earned my PhD. New construction was everywhere so the place looked unfamiliar. (By the way: at least at the U of M, what recession?).

But the new construction was not what made me feel like a stranger. What made me feel strange was this: Here I am a professor myself, and yet...

... I just didn't feel like I actually knew anything.

When we turned the lights off that night, I said to Valerie: "I am still a man without a body of knowledge."

"Yes," she said as she dozed off, "but you have certainties."

I really do love her beyond measure.

Logos2Go

2 Timothy 1.12 ... for I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep what I have committed to Him until that Day.