All through my life I have been a know-it-all. Ask any of my friends and they will confirm it. In Sunday school I was always first to find passages in the Bible. In middle school, I took pride in reading at a level beyond my years. In high school, I knew all the answers to the small group discussion questions. Now in college, I help people with their homework and often answer questions in class. (Call me Hermione). My knowledge is a good thing. I love to learn and think, and I believe that God has blessed me with those things. However, like most good things there is a tendency towards pride in my abilities. As a senior in high school, I thought I was well on my way towards perfection in God’s eyes. I thought I knew everything.

This was not the case. As I have journeyed more and experienced more, I have a greater awareness of my sinfulness. Not only this, in recent months I become acutely aware of my inability to drive sin out of my life on my own. God has, in His mercy, revealed my shortcomings slowly. If I had seen all my sin at once I would have been crushed under the weight of it.

I am beginning to understand fully how much my pride is baseless and unwarranted. Anything “good” about me isn’t me. God has given me gifts and begun the work of sanctification, and that’s the good. I thought that I knew so much, and maybe I did, but does God care about that kind of knowledge? Does God want for me to know Greek and Hebrew if in the process I forget to love people?

God gives us two important commandments. They are to love Him with our whole hearts, minds, and strength and to love those around us as we would ourselves. As I walk with God and He reveals my sin, He also gives me the strength to overcome it. And as I fight the sins of selfishness and pride I will also love God and others more and more. I am realizing that I don’t need to know it all. I want to honor God with the love of knowledge that He’s given me, but He cares about my heart.

I’m writing this to say that if you think you stand, take heed lest you fall. The points in my life where I thought I knew the most were the times when I still had the most to learn. Today, I’m not completely over it. I still know a lot. I’m still not perfect. I’m trying to love God and others better, but I don’t always get it right. In the meantime, I’m encouraged because I serve a God who is faithful to complete the work that He started in me. It’s not over. I don’t have to know it all because I serve the one who does.