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Pointers along the way #164

God with us and beyond us
- Jacob Ninan

Who was Cain's wife? We really don't know. We can guess that it must have been one of his own sisters who was born to Adam and Eve. But God hasn't said anything about this in His word, like many other things He hasn't told us about. Now what if we get upset because we can't get an answer to this question and conclude that God's word is not reliable? There are millions of things about which God doesn't give us an answer. But are we going to reject God because of that?

It is actually very silly if we think that we ought to understand God fully and clear all our doubts before we can believe in Him. We forget that He is God! How can we ever expect to understand Him with our limited brains? He is far above and beyond us! And even when we get to heaven, there will be lots of things we won't be able to understand about God.

How much rest we can have on this earth if we understand and reckon with this simple fact that we are not God, we will never be God, and that as a result we will never be able to understand Him fully. If we know this truly, we will stop beating our heads against the wall unnecessarily and getting upset because we can't understand something about God.

On the other hand, there are many things we can know about God, His character, His ways, His love, mercy, kindness, compassion, etc., for us, and the fact that He is with us. The more we know Him, the more we trust Him. One thing builds on another. This helps us to get to the place where things we don't know about God don't trouble us anymore.

Besides, how does it really matter to us who Cain's wife was? Knowing it wouldn't really make the least difference to us. What about the real issues of life, about sin, our sins, how we can be saved from them, how we can get to know God, how we can have a relationship with Him, etc.? Those questions have answers in God's word, don't they? The Bible itself says that God has given all things that pertain to life and godliness (2Pe.1:3). We may wish that He could have given us some more answers to the questions that puzzle us. But He has given us what we really need, and then we can get nearer to the other answers little by little, as we meditate on His word, ask God to open the eyes of our understanding (Ep.1:17), depend on the Holy Spirit and also receive help from other brothers and sisters in Christ. That is part of our spiritual growth, isn't it?

Fools say there is no God (Ps.14:1). Even intelligent people become fools in this way. And then they think they are being very clever in asking questions about Cain's wife, etc. The fact is that they don't know the first thing about God and who they are in comparison. There is no use trying to give them answers because they will only come up with more questions. Only when they begin to think about how BIG God is, and how small they are, can they begin to receive any true instruction.

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