Beyond Understanding

In 2002, I had the opportunity, while in college, to study abroad at Oxford University. While I was there, I took a trip to Stonehenge, one of the most mysterious sites in the world. Archaeologists believe it was constructed over a long period, from 3000 BC to 2000 BC.

Since it was created so long ago, and used by people for so many hundreds of years, there are unresolvable questions about why it was created - and how it was even possible to make the site. For instance, there were originally 80 'bluestones' at the site, each stone weighing between 2 to 4 tons, that were carried about 140 miles, from southwestern Wales to Stonehenge. After the first stone, if I was involved, I would have said, "Ok, that's enough. We just need one. This — this will do."

Doesn't that make Stonehenge interesting? It's right there - you can visit it and see it. But, there's so much that is unexplained… In a far more dramatic way, God is, by definition, beyond our understanding. And whereas God can communicate with us, given our limits, God repeatedly tells us that we cannot fully understand him.

For instance, in Isaiah 40, we read: "All the nations are as nothing before him; they are considered by him as empty nothingness. With whom will you compare God? What likeness will you set up for comparison with him?"

And in Isaiah 55 we read, "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, and your ways are not my ways." This is the LORD's declaration. "For as heaven is higher than earth, so my ways are higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts."

And Paul affirms this same truth in Romans 11: "Oh, the depth of the riches and the wisdom and the knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments and untraceable his ways! For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor?"

In the Athanasian Creed, we read: "The Father incomprehensible, the Son incomprehensible, and the Holy Spirit incomprehensible…As also there are not three incomprehensibles, nor three uncreated, but one Uncreated, and one Incomprehensible…He therefore that will be saved must think thus of the Trinity."

His greatness is beyond our understanding.

Spend time this week meditating on Isaiah 55:8-9, allowing the truth of God's higher thoughts and ways to humble and comfort you.