O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!
"For who has known the mind of the Lord,
or who has been his counselor?"
"Or who has given a gift to him
that he might be repaid?"
For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory for ever. Amen. Romans 11:33-36(RSV)
I have a trilobite fossil on my desk. It isn't very big, but it is ancient. The last trilobite went extinct about 252 million years ago. My mind stumbles as I try to contemplate that vast span of time. That little creature lived over a quarter of a billion years ago.
He is but one of the many mysteries of the creation that challenges my mind. I am equally dumbfounded on a clear night at the uncountable stars above. We deal with numbers so large that it makes the time between my life and the tiny trilobite seem like nothing.
St. Paul reminds us of the depth of the mystery that is God. It is not that God seeks to keep us in ignorance, instead that we cannot begin to grasp the wonder and glory that is God. The infinity of the universe, His creation, teaches that we have no true understanding of God.
Still, the psalmist writes that we are a little lower than God Himself (Psalm 8.5). Not only this, but the eternal Father has given His Son to be our salvation. It is through Jesus that we have a small glimpse of the glory that awaits us,
Until then, we marvel at the love made flesh in Jesus.