This post is the 2nd in a 6-part series on Idolizing Knowledge. Read the rest of the posts here. Guest directory info is available here.
For those who aren’t familiar, cursive is a style of penmanship with pretty curves and continuous lettering. I spent many days as an 8 year old carefully memorizing and mastering the script.
The teachers of the 1990s insisted cursive was the only writing allowed in high school and college. In my understanding, knowing cursive was currency for my ticket to success in the world.
Fear swelled up in me when my high school teachers began requiring us to type our work on the computer. My child-self never mastered Homerow or Touch Typing. I figured computers were for games and cursive was for life.
I called it wrong. Now I type at 55+ WPM using two fingers at a time. Kids who see my handwriting think I’m bilingual.
The knowledge I staked my hope on as a little girl changed gears and left me in the dust.
Knowledge’s changing nature and instability have thrown me for a loop in more profound ways, too. Years of resisting the Lord because I’d have to change my mind to accept His truth evidence that.
The vivid imagery of James 1:6 pictures a “wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind.”
I feel for the wave.
Characterizing one who lacks wisdom and craves information but doubts what God says, the wave evidences what happens when we let the shifting nature of knowledge carry us through life.
At the mercy of the wind, untethered knowledge is always changing directions. Unanchored knowledge rises and falls as opinions, emotions, and other biases swell up inside it. Pursuing knowledge alone leaves us ever grasping after something that will always slip out of reach.
We can’t count on knowledge the way we count on God.
Knowledge isn’t unchanging, but God is.
Once, when the disciples and Jesus were caught on the open sea in the midst of a storm, Jesus rebuked the wind and the waves. He has the authority and ability to do that.
Can we, in our shifting knowledge, even fathom what that takes? What does one have to know to still forces of nature? What kind of understanding can hold forces of nature in place to make a way for safe, stable passage?
God, in His infinite knowledge, can.
“He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, “Quiet! Be still!” Then the wind died down and it was completely calm.” –Mark 4:39
The rebuke is familiar to those of us living at the mercy of knowledge’s shifting, tumultuous seasons and limitations.
“Be still and know that I am God.” –Psalm 46:10
This is the knowledge that anchors our hope in Christ, who is unchanging.
Relying on knowledge as if it is God tosses us about. We are swayed by the next big idea. Our hopes are thrashed by the winds of change and unwanted possibility.
Relying on knowledge of God instead of knowledge as God secures us. <Click to Tweet>
We know the One who rules over the changing tides and routes the wind. He doesn’t shift and isn’t swayed. Let’s stake our hope in Him.
Do you idolize knowledge, despite its changing nature?
Join me for the next 5 weeks to delve deeper into shattering the idol of knowledge to take hold of knowledge as God intends it to be.
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I like this description that relying on knowledge is like being tossed around by the wind and waves. It’s so important to remember that God I our anchor and that while everything else is changing he is solid and secure.
Thanks Lesley! Helps me remember the mercy and joy of clinging to our anchor!
Praise God, my hope is ultimately anchored in Him. I wish I could keep my focus always and only on Him, but I do get distracted. I’m glad He keeps loving us and pursuing us to draw us into a closer relationship with Himself!
I’m so glad for that, too! Praise Him 🙂
Thank you for this beautiful description of relying on “knowledge of God” instead of “knowledge as God.” And, I agree with Lesley, I love the way that you compared knowledge to the shifting waves. It is so true, and as we get older, we can see how the world is so confused as the sands of knowledge continue shifting. I am so thankful for the security we have in knowing our God! I will be subscribing to receive your series. –Blessings to you!
Thanks Bettie! I hope the series helps you draw nearer to the Lord too : ) The world is so confused, and ever shifting to try to not be confused- but God! He is unchanging and He is not confused or confusing.
Great post, Bethany! I love how you are using the wind and waves to compare our thoughts of knowledge when not anchored in the true knowledge of God. Such a beautiful visual. Thank you for sharing this insight 🙂
Thank you Mandy! I’m not a strong swimmer so I often feel like a wave when in natural waters-I’m basically just tossed about too…so the visual came naturally : ) Thankful the Lord is our anchor!
Yes yes yes!!! So good.
Wow, good word and powerfully written!
Oh, man, Bethany….
That word CHANGE, it is a fulcrum that teeters us one way or the other isn’t it? When we initiate the changes we are on fire and for them and we are swept away with the tide of excitement… knowing God is in the midst of that wave breaking over us. But then when we miss the memos, or change happens instantly, all our knowledge feels useless because we are applying what we learn in truth to the every-changing reality of the world’s business, and we can’t deal with it well. Or we find ourselves tossed overboard begging for a life-saver.
I have just talked about change with my 21 yo daughter this morning. Change she is resisting and letting sweep over her in currants. It is hard to watch when people are swept up in the waters. We all know when we struggle we sink but we forget because we have bargained that we know more than God. As if that was possible. 🙂
I am loving your series so far. This has been a great reminder to let His Word dwell richly so that it would be our life-saver in all our storms.
Blessings!
Dawn
Thank you Dawn!! Wow, I’m loving your comments : ) So helpful! Change as a fulcrum and as what tosses us overboard is such a great illustration. Change makes us flail as we struggle to get a grip. But rescue comes when we accept that what’s tossing us about isn’t in our control (by knowledge or exerting any other means.) Rescue is in taking the hand of the Lord, holding fast to His Word, and letting Him pull us out!! I hope your daughter can find peace in accepting the change she is experiencing. So grateful for our life-saver!
I have felt the temptation in my life to learn about God rather than draw near to Him. He has been good to keep wooing me anyway!
Me too Heather : )
I believe it is easy to become mechanical in motion as opposed to intimate in nature by checking off a list and gaining more instead of resting and learning. Love this series.