Being an “Expert”

I had a student recently ask, “Doesn’t it make you sad that there’s so many things in the world, and we can’t be an expert on all of them?”  Her frustration was stemming (I think) from her uncertainty about her future career path, and her interest in too many things.

Actually, I think it’s precisely that problem that makes life interesting.  It’s why, after thirty-some years, I’m still not really a “know-it-all”, even if I’d like to think so.  It’s why I can still sit down at my computer to learn something about home repair, something about computer science, something about biology, something about God.  In fact, the deeper you get into a particular field, it would seem that the more you realize there is to know.  I am constantly discovering that, in the fields in which I am the most conversant, I am very far from considering myself an “expert”.

That’s a good thing!  We’re designed to want to learn, even if at times perhaps the school system seems designed to stifle that desire.  We will never run out of things to learn.  The implication, then, is that we need to make some choices about what’s worth learning.  There’s a lot of options out there, but where ought I spend my time?

The author of the book of Romans suggests a great field of study:

Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! (Romans 11:33, ESV)

We never get to the point where we’ve exhausted the Bible, where we’ve fully explored the depths of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God.  Perhaps our inability to know what there is to know about biology or computers is only a vague reflection of our inability to exhaust these depths which the writer of Romans is so enamoured with.

So, does it make me sad to find that I can’t be an expert in everything?  No, it encourages me with the realization that I’ll never run out of opportunities to discover, learn, and grow closer to God.