Knowing God 

   “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways -- says the Lord.  For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.” (Isaiah 55: 8 – 9) 

   I don’t believe it is possible to fully know God in this lifetime.  I can’t comprehend His thoughts and ways just as a kindergartener can’t understand Einstein’s Theory of Relativity.  I will have to settle for striving to know Him more and more though knowing Him completely will have to wait for the next life.

   I recently re-read a book that I had read several years ago, “The Cloud of Unknowing”.  When I read it the first time I was at a loss; I couldn’t grasp what the author was proposing and how to apply it to my life.  Spiritually, I wasn’t ready for waters that deep.

   As I read it this time I began to understand what was puzzling to me before.  Not because I’ve become smarter or holier but because God has brought me to a place of understanding that I didn’t have before.  Through the grace of God, this book has made a tremendous difference in my life.

   As much as I would like to know all there is to know about God and spiritual matters my humanity will not allow it.  There is a cloud between me and that level of knowledge, the cloud of unknowing.  A cloud that I can never fully penetrate through my own desires and efforts.  I can’t force it, I can’t demand it, but I can and must seek it.  It is God, through His grace, who will enlighten me as He deems appropriate.

   I can never fully know and understand God in this life.  But by pursuing such understanding through prayer, and contemplation, always seeking God’s will, He will lead me where He wants me to be.