Did you ever stop to ponder how uncertain you are of many things despite how much you’ve “learned” about them?

In Scripture is that electrical passage.

It’s 2 Timothy 3:7, where it speaks of those who are “always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.”

Let it sink in, during this time when we hear on a nearly daily basis about this Harvard graduate or that Stanford one, about Columbia and Princeton.

That’s fine when simple memory, eidetic knowledge, or playing chess–mechanical cerebration–are the prerequisites.

But all too often, the most high-touted scholars are proficient in only one aspect of intelligence, lacking spiritual cognizance–too “smart” to believe much in God.

Intelligence actually can not be defined. When you get right down to it, we don’t know much about anything.

We need the Holy Spirit to discern just about everything in life. Only He truly knows what’s going on around and in us. There are too many complexities in all aspects of life for us to know the truth on our own. How many times have you been scared or confused at work or the doctor’s office?

Every person is unique and has a unique intelligence.

For there are various forms of smart, and scoring high on a narrowly structured SAT or IQ is only one category (and a narrow one) of perception.

“Always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.”

Impossible it is to measure intuition, imagination, and emotional intelligence, among other forms of sagacity.

Can anyone who truly believes that even something as “low” on the evolutionary scale as a butterfly or fish could come into being–its coordinated colors, its perfectly sculpted and uniform scales, its complex digestive, respiratory, and immune system, its eyes, its navigational ability–by mere happenstance (let alone a mammal; a human)?

Only the Great Deceiver (who, granted, is a superintelligence) could convince the societies of this passing world of that. Only the worldly can be deceived (by the Prince of This World).

The sad truth is that our governments, cultures, and educational systems–and too often our seminaries and dicasteries–are fashioned within the confines of rationalism.

Add to it pride, and all too often the result is agnosticism or atheism: a person is too “smart” to believe in a Deity.

Actually, what it comes down to is a person too limited in his or her concept of reality (albeit great at taking tests) to appreciate the formation of that reality by a massively, endlessly, unimaginably more intelligent Force.

So it is that we find ourselves in so many fixes and conundrums: we rely on human “intellects” instead of the Holy Spirit, instead of prayer.

Let this be known: many are the little old ladies or hobbled old men or maids or cleaning people whose wisdom exceeds that of the founders of Facebook, say, or Tesla.

Don’t let these people define you.

Break out of any mold they have cast you into.

Your mind is spirit and spirit is endless. Your humility is wisdom. Your faith is the highest form of knowledge.

Only with God can final truth be known; only truth is wisdom.

That’s available only when we seek God at every turn.