A few years ago, I started this blog. I remember the day the idea came to me. I was about 12, I think. “Dad! Dad! I have an idea!” I remember running into his office. “I should start a blog!” Why I wanted to, I don’t exactly know. Perhaps it was from God! Or perhaps I wanted to “show off” and be all fancy with my supreme blogyness. But one thing is for certain, I think. I got a lot of encouragement from it. I gained a lot from doing it, in the end. I saw my Dad smile and say “okay, I think that can be arranged.” I saw him work hard creating this amazing site for me (which I doubt is that hard, seeing that he is a computer genius!), and be proud of me. Now reading back at the blog posts I put, they were actually quite silly at times. But goodness, there were certainly times I read back now and am amazed by myself, and I realize I learned so much from just sharing my thoughts.

Thus the point of this blog, for me, isn’t as much as getting to others with my observations and thoughts and prayers. (Goodness, if I based it off of that, no one would read it! I wouldn’t even read it myself!) It’s about what I can get from writing my thoughts and what God is telling me through His amazing Word. And if someone gets something from it, then, hey! Great! But if not, then that’s okay, too. Because I’llbe getting something from it, and that’s pretty grand news.

You know, I’ve come to the realization these past few years since I started this blog. I really don’t know everything. Thankfully, I’ve got a Father in heaven who does. And He gave me these flipping awesome parents to give me wisdom and knowledge and advice.

Yeah, I know some stuff. I know quite a bit about God and His amazing ways and how He loves me and such and so forth, I know how to do stuff in math that I’ll probably never use in the real world, and I know some math that I already do use in the real world. But do I know everything? Have I eaten of the tree of knowledge of good and evil? Hmmmm. Um, I don’t recall that. Do I want to know everything? My flesh screams “yes!” (of course, stupid flabbery flesh! Yes, I did just say “flabbery”, and no, I don’t think that is a real word.) but do I really? Do I really want to see all of the death and pain that us humans often inflict upon ourselves as God does? And besides, what’s the fun in life if there is absolutely no mystery about anything? Does that mean I’m going to throw my hands up in the air and refuse to open my history book because ignorance is bliss? No! Because, as George Santayana wisely said it, “Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it”.

So I’ve come to the point in my life where I have decided that it’s honestly a gift to not know everything. You know something else I’ve learned? Learning can be actually quite fun. And you loose that factor when you know everything. But still, it requires a fine balance between striving to learn and striving to remain humble and accepting the fact that we will never learn everything, and that we don’t want learn everything. We want to strive to learn as much as God allows, but never beyond that. Because where’s the fun in life if we don’t rely on faith and trust in at least a few things?

And I think it’s obviously true that a lot of teenagers fall into the trap that they know everything, I know I have. But I think adults sometimes do, too. It just looks different and isn’t so direct. Actually, I think this is something we struggle with as a whole as the human race. Perhaps the temptation of that awful fruit from that awful tree (you know which one I’m referring to, the one I mentioned up above. Ick.) is still within us. Well, the curse is still with us, isn’t it? All the women who have had babies cry “heck yeah!”. So yeah, there’s still a part of me that feels like I know a lot, even as much as my parents. But that’s when the Holy Spirit inside of me says “shh. Listen. Just listen to them.” And I’m amazed at the wisdom that pours out as they speak. And honestly, that’s when I feel sorry for all those kids out there who use their parents as an excuse and think they are “too cool” to “hang” with “old people who happen to have birthed me”. I listen to the solid advice they give me. To the silly and funny stories they share with me. To their experiences in life. I learn from the mistakes they made as young adults, so I don’t have to make the same ones. Because the “history” part in “Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it” refers to more than just things that happened over 50 years ago. It refers to 5 years ago. It refers to 3 weeks ago. It refers to yesterday! So maybe I can share wisdom beyond my years with you. That is only because I listen to my elders, as they share their wisdom with me, and the wisdom they learned from their parents, and their grandparents, and their great-grandparents, and so on. So yeah, I’m going to be “uncool”. Yeah! I’m gonna sit here a soak up all of this history like a sponge and I’m going to learn from it. If learning from history and not repeating it means being “uncool”, then heck yeah. Bring on all the uncoolness baby.