How can being absolutely certain of Christ's reality and sovereignty be a curse? Because the one thing that will unfailingly close your mind to the great spontaneous freedom of life -- the one thing, in other words, sure to kill the vibrant, open-ended vitality of the Holy Spirit -- is being confident that you know and understand everything.

And why, if you're a Christian, are you at least as likely as anyone else to feel that you know and understand everything? Because you think and feel that you know God.

We Christians think we know God. We pride ourselves on how well we know God, how intimately we relate to him, how constantly we are with him. We're sure that we know God's will, thought, purpose, desire, "plan" for our lives. We're sure we know how God wants us to think, pray, behave, talk, dress, vote. 

We have the Bible. The Bible is in black and white. The mind of God is right there on the page.

Read the Bible; know God's mind.

Know God's mind; know the world.

Know the world; be above the world.

Be above the world; wouldn't know God from a used car salesman.

"I tell you the truth," said Jesus, "anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it."

Jesus isn't explicity clear about a whole lot of things, but on this point he leaves no room for misunderstanding: Without the mind of a child, you can't come into heaven.

And if there's one thing you can say about children, it's that they operate in the world wide open to the knowledge that, when push comes to shove, they don't know squat about life.

We should never, ever forget that, as adults, we barely know more. And as adults we probably know less about God than we did when we were kids.

My personal opinion and experience is that once you're sure you've grasped God -- as so many, many Christians are so sure they have -- it's a guarantee you've lost him.

Other stuff I've written about this: Are We Already Fulfilling God's "Plan" for Us?, and  Hallelujah! We Know So Little!

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