I Don’t Know. But I Know the One Who Does.

September 13, 2021

I always am fighting the urge to think I have to know everything, do everything, and solve everything.

Anyone else?  Is it just me?

Maybe this is me being an enneagram 1/perfectionist. Maybe it is oldest child syndrome. Maybe it is the fact that I spent all of my teen years competing in ag issues debates and had to be able to convince old seed corn execs asking me agricultural policy questions that I knew as much as they did even though I was only 17.

Or, all of that...and some pride🙂. In my pride I forget that I am just a human, and there is no way I can know everything and do everything.

So, I am making concerted effort to be comfortable with these three words:

I. Don't. Know.

I don't know about that issue. I don't know how to do that thing. I don't know how to solve that problem. I don't know MOST THINGS actually.

And that's ok. I am just one human.  I am not all powerful, all knowing, all benevolent. I am not God.  And saying "I don't know" instead of believing that I SHOULD know and thinking that it is up to me to figure out everything...This becomes a sort of liturgy.

Liturgies get a bad wrap in the evangelical circles I'm in. The formulaic and prescriptive plan for worship can be seen as robbing spirituality of it's authenticity and intimacy. And at times, maybe that is so...I don't know everything🙂. 

But, I do think that having planned ways to remind myself of who I am, a mere human standing before a Holy Righteous God, does help me to stay authentic and intimately connected to Him. It helps me to lean against my tendencies. It helps me walk in the Spirit and not in the flesh.

So, for me, "I don't know" is my liturgy. It is my mantra. It is my breath prayer. It is my call and response. In saying I don't know I am reclaiming and re-centering on an entire theology of God being the only all-knowing one. And He is my Father. And He Knows.

I don't know,

But I Know the One Who Does.

He Knows All.

I choose to trust The One Who Knows,

And I remind myself that He is not me.