There’s a saying, “you can’t put watermelon ideas in a pea brain.” I like it because it speaks to the size of God versus the size of our own ability to comprehend and understand. We simply can’t know and understand everything about the world around or us, or about God Himself.
Sometimes when kids are teen agers they can drive their parents nuts because they know everything, they think they have all the answers. It can make the rest of us who have been on the planet much longer, a bit crazy. Also, worried, concerned. There’s another saying, “those of you who think you know everything, annoy the heck out of those of us who do.”
Usually we grow out of our know-it-all-phase, although there is often a piece of that that remains behind. Humility, a bit of intellectual surrender, does not always come so easy to us as people. Arrogance, hubris, believing ourselves to have all the answers and to be right, that seems to come pretty naturally to most of us.
The internet is a great venue for people who have all the answers. There can be some frolicking discussions about religion, politics, even marriage. Big thoughts, lots and lots of watermelons ideas from the pea brains. (There goes half my readership now mortally offended because I’ve called us all pea brains.)
We are pea brains, as in we don’t always know what we think we know, and some concepts are too big for our brains to process. That’s okay, welcome to the human race. The problem being that like teen agers we can cause ourself unnecessary angst by chasing rabbits down holes and believing we know it all. I sometimes say when we find that rabbit, we’re prepared to bludgeon him to death with the truth as we know it. If we’re truly seeking the truth however, we have to surrender some of our intellect, to let go of what we think we know. In order to learn anything, we have to make room for the new. When we think we know everything, we become totally unteachable.
A couple of discussions yesterday about pre-destination, pre-determinism sparked my dark humor. If you have some understanding of physics, of the nature of time and space, of the vastness of God, then the idea that He may know who we are and what our decisions are going to be before we know, is entirely within the realm of possibility. We however, are called to live in the present, in His presence, as I sometimes say.
Someone smart once explained it as we have freewill, like a fish has freewill in an aquarium. We are free to swim among the coral or the bubbler, but there are still aquarium walls, transparent so we can’t always see them, but they are there. That’s called putting a watermelon idea in a pea brain. It’s a paradox which often strains our brains, and time is no longer a linear concept in the way we perceive it as people.
What sparked my dark humor was how strident, how unyielding some of the predestination ones were being, so while strongly advocating for the total sovereignty of God, ironically they were quite prepared to begin revoking people’s salvation themselves and declaring them to not be members of the elect.
There’s an irony to people’s logic (or lack thereof) that often makes me laugh, and it all boils down to one root issue, God is God and you are not.
Julie (aka Cookie) said:
whereas you are reminded of watermelons and peas…
I hear Steven Curtis Chapman singing….
“God is God and I am not
I can only see a part of the picture He’s painting
God is God and I am man
So I’ll never understand it all
For only God is God”
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insanitybytes22 said:
Amen! 🙂
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Salvageable said:
How Socratic: to confess that we are all pea brains and that one of the most important things to know is how much we do not know. J.
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insanitybytes22 said:
Socra- who? 🙂
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MJThompson said:
Excellent! From one pea-brain to another – I think, therefore I am… I think?
So one fish asked the other, “Have you ever tried to swim into that space out there”? “No, it seems too vast and terrifies my sense of safety here behind this coral”, replied the older bottom-feeder. “But haven’t you ever wanted more?” quizzed the younger. “Never, in fact I often feel that I’ve a bit too much, especially when you guppies forget that we’re just fish!”
Back to we ‘pea–brains’ – indeed, “God is God and you are not.” I love the line in the classic movie “Rudy” where Rudy asks his priest for some words of wisdom and receives his reply, “I only know this: there is a God, and I’m not Him”.
The more I come to know, the more I realize how much I do not know. But I do know the One Whose promises are predestined to come to fruition and has said, “These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world” – Jn. 16:33. That’s quite enough to fill this pea-brain!
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insanitybytes22 said:
Ha! I like the way you think, so thank you for your comment. 🙂
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cynfected said:
Oh insanitybytes. … if anyone is ever able to give me the courage to share some of my dark ‘cynfected ‘ thoughts to be gasped at indignantly or viewed as outrageous ignorance in today’s world of ‘progress’ and ever increasing ‘knowledge ‘ …. it will be you 😎. …. Thanks once again for putting into words and sharing your terribly dark humour and oh so limited insight (in comparison with and in light of the fact that you .. we … are not God). It is received with a much nodding of head and a perhaps a little bit of … maybe not so little … smirking grin of … oh yessssss … what pea brained know it all’s we all are. … Thank goodness that God is so patient … so merciful … so kind….. and so BIG … (hearted) … amidst .. among … and always in this crazy oh so progressive knowledgeable intellectual world we live in. ..
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insanitybytes22 said:
Ahh, thank you for your kind words. May you find lots of courage to speak your thoughts. I like the saying, “people are already going to talk about you, so be sure to give them something to talk about.”
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Pastor Randy said:
Love this thought: “If we’re truly seeking the truth however, we have to surrender some of our intellect, to let go of what we think we know.” And this truly is an act of humility. Thanks!
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Rebecca LuElla Miller said:
Good post, IB. I missed the discussion you referred to and will have to go back and read it. But two thoughts crystallized (in this pea brain) as I read: 1) we who believe that God revealed Himself in His word know a lot more than we could have on our own; and 2) someone of intellect doesn’t generally proclaim how much he or she knows; rather, intellect is marked by curiosity and the need to ask questions and to keep learning. The idea that we can know everything is quite absurd. But in what might seem like a contradiction, we can be very certain about what God has made clear.
Becky
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