What to Do with "I Don't Know"
Recently, the elders had to deal with a delicate, complex situation that called for Solomon-level wisdom. As we delved into the matter and gathered the facts to get a clearer sense of things, we began to realize that we would have to make a final decision without absolute clarity on the issues involved. We knew that the only certainty was that people would get hurt regardless of what decision we made.
In other words, we would never be able to put “I don’t know” behind us; we would have to make a decision without the kind of clarity that would make us all entirely comfortable.
Actually, this is not uncommon. In all of life, we often find ourselves having to make decisions in the territory somewhere south of 100% certainty as to the facts, somewhere short of final clarity.
There are times when you have exhausted all the resources at your disposal – you have studied the Scripture, you have prayed, you have sought godly counsel, you have weighed the risks and benefits – and you still don’t have clarity. After doing all you can to learn all you can, you are still left with something less than confidence that you are making a sound choice.
What are we supposed to do with “I don’t know”? Scripture provides two excellent answers to that question.
1. Sometimes we must learn to be satisfied with not knowing.
God’s Word was never intended to tell us everything we want to know or everything we think we need to know. There are some secrets that belong to God, some doors that are marked “No Trespassing.”
And we have to be okay with that.
It’s not easy to be satisfied with not knowing things we think we need to know. After all, we live in an age that was literally inconceivable to me when I was a boy. We literally have virtually all the information in the world at our fingertips. Anyone with a smartphone or tablet can access the vast world of information available on the web.
I saw firsthand the impact that smartphones made on education. When I started teaching in the late 1970s, the exciting new technology (and I am not speaking ironically) was overhead projectors and hand-held calculators. It was a given – as it had been for thousands of years before – that the teacher knows more than the student.
Personal access to the internet has changed the power dynamic in the teacher-student relationship. With access to the world-wide web in his pocket, the student no longer sees the teacher as the master who possesses the knowledge, the knowledgeable one who dispenses information to the ignorant student. In the mind of the 21st century student teachers are just one source of information among many
That mindset – the notion that we have access to whatever information we think we need – can create a kind of arrogance, a hubris that makes us think that we ought to be able to know whatever we want to know. And that mindset can make us uncomfortable with “I don’t know.”
Moses was the man by whom God gave His people His Law. But Moses knew that no legal code, even one written by the finger of God, was intended provide absolute moral clarity all the time. That’s why he included these words near the end of his series of sermons delivered to the people of God right before they crossed into the Land:
“The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law” (Deut 29:29, ESV).
Our insistence on more complete knowledge and understanding than we can we can derive from God’s Word is the same lust that drove our father and mother to defy God in the first place: “You shall be as gods, knowing good and evil” (Gen 3:5). It is a matter of trusting obedience for us sometimes to quiet our curiosity and be content with less than complete information, even when we are sure we need to know more, because “the secret things belong to the Lord.”
Being satisfied with “I don’t know” is acknowledging our creatureliness, recognizing our limitations as finite creatures who depend on the Creator. Being satisfied with “I don’t know” calls for the same humility that we must exercise in resting instead of driving ourselves incessantly.
Why do we drive ourselves so ferociously? Why don’t we get enough sleep? Why don’t we observe the weekly rhythm of Sabbath-rest? Isn’t that a kind of vanity?
Scripture says it is: “It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows. For so He giveth His beloved sleep” (Psa 127:2, AV).
So it is right and properly humble that we sometimes have to be okay with admitting to ourselves and to one another, “I don’t know.
2. We must trust God’s Spirit to pray for us when we don’t know how to pray.
One of my favorite texts in the Bible – and one I often remind myself of when I pray – is Romans 8:26-27:
“Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God” (Rom 8:26-27, ESV).
How many times have I wanted to pray about a vexing and distressing situation and not known exactly what to pray for? We are often in situations that are so complex that we can’t even be sure what restoration and wholeness would look like. We often face problems in which we must trust God for a future we cannot even envision.
That’s when this lovely promise means so much: God’s Spirit – who alone knows both our great need and God’s perfect will – translates our inarticulate groanings into eloquent supplications before the Throne of Grace.
I often find myself praying “Romans 8:26 prayers” because I don’t know how else to pray. This is surely one of the most precious of the ministries of the Spirit in the life of the believer, how He helps us pray.
So what can we do with “I don’t know”? We must regard this anxiety as we must regard all of our anxieties, cares we leave with God not just because He is so wise but also because we are confident that He cares for us (1 Pet 5:7).
We remind ourselves that it is a dangerous kind of vanity that compels us to demand to know more than we can know. There are secrets that belong to God, and we do well to leave those locked doors closed.
And we must trust that our prayers about these perplexing matters, even if they come out of us as hoarse and anguished whispers, appear before God’s throne as eloquent supplications because the Spirit intercedes for us.