The Gift of Not Knowing It All

The Gift of Not Knowing It All
written by Jeanette Flake

There is a gift inherent in experiencing life in this world.  It is a beautiful gift. 

But like most beautiful gifts, family or marriage or even personal freedom, we sometimes take it for granted or even resent it and wish we could be free from its constraints. 

Before this life, we had progressed as far as we could in our premortal circumstances.  We lived with Our Heavenly Father and knew for certain of his reality.  We had been taught the truths of eternity, and in that existence, with our Father looking over our shoulders, we chose according to the eternal truths he had taught us.  But like any good father, He knew that this existence could only take us so far.  We needed to learn eternal truth, not just in theory with Him overseeing all of our choices.  We needed to learn it all in a way that we could appreciate those truths for themselves and not just because this Most Powerful and Most Wise Being in the Universe had told us to live by them.

In essence, like a university student studying science, we had completed our "lecture" class and were entering the "lab" phase of learning.  But unlike lab classes in universities, Our Father gave us the incomparable gift of the veil.  As we entered our lab class, we would pass through a veil and forget Our Father and our previous existence and the great power He possesses.  He knew that if we entered our lab class with all the answers, we could never grow to appreciate those truths in the same way we could if we were free to experience things for the "first time" as it were and form our own conclusions.  We would experience life free of all the implications of prior knowledge and eternal justice.  Part of the gift of agency was Father letting us forget and have to relearn for ourselves what he had already taught us in theory.

We had completed our lecture class and were entering the lab phase of learning.

Every day, we are observers
of the effects of the different ways to live.

Whether we would choose to commit sin ourselves or not (and we inevitably will), we have been given the gift of living in a world where people choose to commit sins.  Every day, we are observers of the effects of the different ways to live.  We see what happens when people are selfish and seek for power through oppression of others.  We see the effects of addictions and poverty and ignorance.  As we see these scenes played out before us, and through the gift of forgetting, we are able to come to conclusions about what is the right without any preconceived prejudices.  We begin to appreciate the commandments for their own inherent value and not just in terms of obeying because we know how powerful God is and that we face eternal punishment if we don't live right.  The fact that we don't and can't know everything right now is a great gift.  It is what allows us to actually become a good person, rather than just acting the part because God is right there waiting to mete out eternal punishment if we don't.  By discovering for ourselves, the eternal truths and principles actually become part of ourselves instead of just being an "I do this because God told me to" type of a thing.

The fact that we don't and can't know everything right now is a great gift.  It is what allows us to actually become a good person,
rather than just acting the part.

Because of this gift of allowing us to learn for ourselves, not everything will make sense all at once.  Learning anything worthwhile is a process that takes time, and if God simply handed us all the answers, we would not be able to go through the process of discovery that changes our very beings into what He is.  It's not that he never wants us to know the answers, it's that he knows that telling us everything right now will take away the very experiences that exalt and change us into the type of Celestial Beings that he is.

So, that's why sometimes things don't make sense.  He doesn't prove archaeologists wrong when they dispute details of the Book of Mormon.  He doesn't give us a list all the reasons we were given our trials and what he wants us to learn from them.  He doesn't even explain all his commandments right away.  If he spoon-fed us the answers to all of our questions and doubts, it would eliminate the need to question, wonder, learn, discover, and ultimately become better.  We were already good enough to choose good when all the answers were given to us.  We have to now become something more.

If he spoon-fed us the answers, it would eliminate the need to question, wonder, learn, discover, and ultimately become better.

When we're frustrated with the things we feel we need answers to, I see Him as being in the position I was in while I was teaching my second son to read.  As a 2-year-old, this precocious son would come to me in tears over the fact that he couldn't read.  Like any good parent, I started to teach him.  For a while he was patient as he repeated the names of letters and their sounds.  At some point in the whole process, he became discouraged and reiterated to me the fact that he wanted to learn to read not to recite letter sounds. Although I sympathized with his impatience, I tried over and over again to explain that I was teaching him to read, that this was the process by which he would learn.  He wanted me to teach him words when I knew that he would never be very good at reading words if he had to memorize each and every word instead of learning the principles of phonics so that he would have the skills to read more than just the several words he had memorized.  I was teaching him to read as fast as I could to have it be really effective.

I see Heavenly Father as being in the same position.  I think He fully appreciates that sometimes we are frustrated by the limited amount of our own knowledge about things we would like to know.  I think He hurts for us when we want to know more and when we get impatient that more knowledge is slow in coming at times.  I think He weeps for our tears over the gap between what we now know and what we would like to know.  But like parents taking their child to get immunizations, He knows that what will hurt us in this moment is less painful than the alternative. 

Like parents taking their child to get immunizations, He knows that what will hurt us in this moment is less painful than the alternative. 

At my own moments of frustration at the slowness of the learning process, when I am ready to quit and thinking how easy and comfortable it would be if I could just not have to live by restrictive commandments when I'm not 100% sure that I'm even heading in the right direction, I feel Him telling me, "I'm teaching you just as fast as I can.  I can't teach you this so that you really, truly KNOW it any faster than this."

I still have those times where I'm discouraged and thinking how much easier it would be to just scrap it all.  But I have come to appreciate the gift of learning and discovering things on my own.  And I have faith that the process produces desirable results.  I may not know everything yet.  But I know enough to discern light from darkness, clarity from confusion, and lies from truth.  I know the Gospel is true, not because I have all the answers, but because I can't discount all the things I do know.  One of the most important of these is that living the principles makes me happier than not living them.  I recognize their value, and I can't discount that without lying.  I don't know everything.  But I know enough.

I can't discount all the things
I do know. . .  Living the principles
of the gospel makes me happier
than not living them. . . I recognize their value.

I don't know everything.  

But I know enough.