Revelation should frustrate the inner rationalist within us.

It always comes packaged with mystery. It is constantly teaching us what we can know (because God revealed it) and what we can’t know (because God hasn’t revealed it).

“The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.” (Deuteronomy 29:29)

It raises questions that only God can answer.

It broadens our knowledge, and exposes our ignorance.

It bumps us up against our inability to search out what God hasn’t revealed.

“Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised,
and his greatness is unsearchable.”
– Psalm 145:3

And it’s all grace. God gives, and we receive. He reveals, we believe.

He accommodates and condescends and “lisps” to us.

Humility is the only right way to receive this. It doesn’t say, “This makes total sense; there isn’t mystery in this.”

It instead says,

“If anyone among you thinks that he is wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise.” (1 Corinthians 3:18)

And,

“If anyone imagines that he knows something, he does not yet know as he ought to know.” (1 Corinthians 8:2)

And,

“For if anyone thinks he is something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself.” (Galatians 6:3)

And,

“Then I saw all the work of God, that man cannot find out the work that is done under the sun… even though a wise man claims to know, he cannot find it out.” (Ecclesiastes 8:17)

And,

“Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high; I cannot attain it.” (Psalm 139:6)

And,

“Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!” (Romans 11:33)

And,

“O Lord, my heart is not lifted up;
my eyes are not raised too high;
I do not occupy myself with things
too great and too marvelous for me.
But I have calmed and quieted my soul,
like a weaned child with its mother;
like a weaned child is my soul within me.”
– Psalm 131:1-2

My friend Bradley once described the incomprehensibility of God like a warm campfire. We can’t touch it, but it provides warmth. So we sleep next to it.

It’s also like the sun. It heats up the earth and illuminates everything in its way. It’s bright and beautiful and clarifying and life-giving.

And yet we can’t stare into it, or see inside it, or pretend that it won’t blind us in our very attempt to. But it burns through the fog and clears a way.

Hence, this should also encourage the inner skeptic within us.

“Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.” (Psalm 109:105)