Ecclesiastes 11:5 As you do not know the path of the wind,
    or how the body is formed in a mother’s womb,
so you cannot understand the work of God,
    the Maker of all things.

Solomon was noted for his wisdom, but I think this is one of the wisest things he wrote, and it’s a confession of ignorance. Just like yesterday, we run into the different meanings of ruach here. The ESV renders it as “spirit,” but both the NIV and the Japanese say “wind.” It’s interesting that the two mysteries Solomon gives as examples are things we claim to know a lot about today, but they are actually still mysterious. Fetal development is an area of intense research, and one of the points of hottest contention is when it becomes a human being. That would fit with the ESV rendering this as “the way the spirit comes to the bones in the womb.” Going with “wind,” meteorology is so complex that it has sparked the creation of some of the biggest supercomputers in the world. With those and satellite observation weather forecasting has become much more accurate, but it is still far from exact, and weather certainly can’t be controlled. The point is, as Solomon states here, only God knows everything, because He actually does everything. Not grasping that is hubris, which even the ancient Greeks recognized as one of the most dangerous attitudes. Humility is an essential component of wisdom! By God’s grace He allows us to discover more and more about the physical universe, but having a grasp of just how much we don’t know is necessary for genuine wisdom.

This is something I’ve run into off and on all my life. I was given a high IQ and I have always liked to learn and know stuff, but that has led to times of intense pride, even to the point of hubris. That has never been pretty! It was a beautiful breakthrough when it really came on me that God’s smart and I’m not. Discovering things I don’t know has become a joy to me, whether or not I think I could ever learn whatever those things might be. Releasing things to God has become a joyful exercise, not to be irresponsible but to recognize that I don’t have to know everything because God does, and He loves me. I am at times saddened by the ignorance of some people, not because they are ignorant but because they seem to have no desire to be otherwise, but then I compare my ignorance to God’s omniscience, and I can love them as God loves me. I have always liked the Japanese expression, “acorns comparing height,” because it so beautifully encapsulates the reality that we are equally insignificant, compared to God. The marvelous thing is, God loves us anyway!

Father, thank You for this reminder. Thank You for all the things You do to teach us and grow us and remind us of our humanity. Thank You that I seem to be mostly through this cold/flu/whatever, and that my wife is well along as well. Help us keep our focus on You, whatever is going on in our bodies or in the world around us, so that Your purposes for us may be fulfilled on Your schedule for Your glory. Thank You. Praise God!