You are patient and loving. You are slow to anger and so full of mercy. You don't desire that any would be lost but that all would come to repentance. You are perfect and holy. You are limitless. How can I understand You? How can I possibly. Ever. Understand You.

But I confess that instead of even trying at all in the face of that daunting task of knowing You, I turn in fear. I give up. I give so little. I give so little effort. I know my inadequacy. I'm scared. I'm scared I can't know You. Because I have tried, but there is so much to know. And not just of You but of everything in creation. And I could spend my entire life studying one portion of that creation - be it the planets and stars, one of the any 8.7 ish million species on earth, the psychology of humans, the weather, archeology, geology. And there could still be many things I do not know. 

I am selfish. It is easier to not know. To not try. To not keep seeking, learning, growing, asking, knocking.

Thank You. Oh dear God, thank You that I don't have to do this alone. I don't have to dedicate a career to becoming an expert in who You are. I will do all that I can, to the best of my ability, with the mind You have given me. I will do this with all of my heart. With all of my soul.

But what I know in part, You are revealing, in Your timing, to the whole. Let me learn with the whole. Let me comprehend You with every sinew and ligament. With every bone and muscle. With the follower of Jesus who is so similar to me. And with the follower of Jesus that is so different. With the follower of Jesus who is so easy and the one who is so hard. With the one I always agree with. And with the one who always seems to disagree with me.  If only they could see what I see and know what I know than we would be just the same and it would be so simple! {And we would know You so much less}. 

I know that Your way is what I actually need. This stretching and growing. I do not want to be blind like the men in the old Indian story who all feel a different part of the same elephant and think they know how to describe what it looks like. You, Father, cannot possibly ever be understood if those who are in Christ hold to our own opinion stronger than the truth that is the whole. You are doing the forming and growing of Your Bride. You are doing it. And I want to be part of this perfect unity. I want to be part of this bigger thing that You are doing. Thank you for choosing a way that forces humility on me. {It is not for me to know if there is any other way I could have learned it.}

Father put Your will inside of me  -  of us -  may we together share Your desires. May we see what You see, weep for that which You weep for. May we truly hear each other. May we truly listen. May we learn from our weaknesses and grow in our strengths.