In case you haven’t noticed, all of us have limits. We especially have limits on what we can focus on. This is a problem because we live in a world with unlimited information asking for our attention. But there are some of us that just can’t stand not to know everything.  Here are five reason why we don’t need to know it all and why we shouldn’t spend all our time trying to. 

1. Trying to know it all can destroy our life. The Bible starts out here. God puts man in his perfect place. Man thinks God is keeping important “knowledge” back from him. And after believing a lie from the devil, man goes after the knowledge of good and evil thinking this missing information is keeping him from being like God. It all goes downhill, really far downhill, from there. Please read Genesis 3

2. Trying to know it all destroys your time. Life is fleeting. You can read it right there in Psalms 144:4 where it says “Man is like a breath; his days are like a passing shadow.” Ever spend a lot of time on something and in the end it didn’t matter much? 

3. Trying to know it all destroys our peace. We live in a fallen world. There is an unlimited amount of pain. Do we care about it? Yes. Do we ignore what we can effect? No. Do we have to spend our time learning about every corner of it and grabbing at every piece of gossip about it? We simply don’t have the capacity, and we often fall into a trap that Proverbs 26:27 warns us about. “Like one who takes a dog by the ears is he who passes by and meddles with strife not belonging to him.” (NASB)

4. Trying to know it all keeps us from our destiny. I am sure most of all of us have heard the story of when a world class violinist was asked how they learned to play at that level. The answer was… deliberate neglect of everything else in their life. Most of us aren’t going to be world class violinists. Only, each of us has an important destiny. Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 12 that we are like a body with each having our own role or part, and wasting time on other people’s destiny keeps us from fulfilling ours. 

5. Trying to know it all keeps us from joy. By letting God be God, and you be you gives you a chance to enjoy both God and yourself. We can focus our time on God instead of tracking down every piece of information out there for we can advise God on what God might want to do about it.

This is not a snapshot article about ignorance is bliss, or that we should not care about things or others.  But we can’t know it all and getting into everyone else’s business, when it isn’t our business, will exhaust us and hamper God’s use for us in his kingdom work. We were fearfully and wonderfully made for a great purpose, but we don’t need to know everything about every purpose.

Doug

The words of British poet Robert Abrahams say it well, “For some men die by shrapnel, And some go down in flames, But most men perish inch by inch, In play at little games.”  Our goal is to identify the little games and put a stop to them and put the right weight on the right things.