Discovery

It is hard to know everything.  I know it is easy to be caught acting, thinking, or at least imaging that one knows everything, yet reality tells a different story.  The logic I hear today of being not completely informed always centers on the sheer volume of information.  The rate of information documented on the web, published in other forms, and shared through new forms of communication is beyond anyone person’s comprehension.  Yet there is a thread in the thought that suggests if not for the sheer quantity one could and would know.  I don’t think so.
 
I grew up in an age where information came through learning, research, and experience.  Alternative means of discovery were limited.  I knew I didn’t know.  I understood I needed to listen in order to know more than the limited activities within my sight.  I also knew others could not know all the things, however little, that I did, so sharing, listening, and dialogue was and is extremely important.
 
My response then wasn’t new.  I was following a model established over time, and it worked.  For example, “when King Hezekiah heard the report, he also tore his clothes and dressed in rough, penitential burlap gunnysacks, and went into the sanctuary of God.  He sent Eliakim the palace administrator, Shebna the secretary, and the senior priests, all of them also dressed in penitential burlap, to the prophet Isaiah son of Amoz.”  (Isaiah 37.1, 2)  The King didn’t know, Isaiah didn’t know, what had happened.  Even more importantly, the people didn’t know what the King thought of the news.
 
I wonder if I listen as well as I could.  I don’t think so.  In an age where I can just google to get an answer, I often find myself assuming there is nothing outside of the web worth discovering.  Even my experiences need to fit within the establish frameworks of culture, norm, and political correctness.  Life isn’t a cookie cutter, predictable event you and I can discover through a search engine.
 
Life is discovery.  Relationships are living.  We, God included, are life.