Maybe it only happens to writer-type language-geeks like me, but sometimes when I'm reading something it'll just happen - Word Crush (I may have just added to my geek status by coining that phrase...). One particular word choice will just seem so unique and curious that I cannot stop thinking about it. Words are powerful things; for every one you choose, there are thousands more you could've used instead.
A few days ago, one of my most insightful and wise friends was telling me about the things she's learning, and she mentioned a verse in the book of Job. Wanting to be equally as insightful and wise, I flipped it open, and almost instantly it happened: Word Crush.
"As for me, I would seek God, and to God would I commit my cause, who does great things and unsearchable, marvelous things without number." (5:8-9)
Unsearchable.
All day today, that word has been ping-ponging around my brain. Unsearchable: unable to be clearly understood. Why is it that the author of Job would pick that term to describe the works of God?
I did a little digging on this word. Unless you're a nerd like me, you probably didn't know that Google has this neat ability to track the number of mentions of a specific word overtime in a wide reach of literature. Well, it's super neat. And this specific word (as you can see in the chart above), has dropped steadily in number of mentions since the 1800s.
Basically, "unsearchable" isn't very popular these days.
And it makes sense.
We live in a culture where EVERYTHING is searchable. If there is anything at all that we don't fully understand, we whip out our phones and look it up as quickly as we can. We cling to Google for dear life. We have so much access to so much information that the sheer volume of knowledge at our fingertips is overwhelming. It's cool to be informed, to be well-read, to have opinions we feel entitled to post on social media. It's unheard of to buy something or think something or decide something without doing tons of background research in advance. We are on this constant quest to know it all, and we often imagine that we do.
I think I'm obsessed with this "unsearchable" thing because, like so much I come across in the Bible, it goes against everything that the world tells me is important. The author of Job describes the works of God as something we simply do not have the capacity to understand. All our searching will go unfounded.
This means that I simply cannot know - I cannot know what job I'll have in five years; I cannot know which people will make surprise entrances into my life, shaking up everything; I cannot know where I'll live when I'm old or how much money I'll have when I retire; I cannot know what plans there are for me or how those plans will alter eternity.
All I can know is that there simply are plans. There are plans without number, and they are marvelous. And I cannot Google-search them right now. That humbles me down into dust. In a world where I feel pressured to know everything all the time, it brings me the strangest refreshment and relief.
Unsearchable, marvelous things beyond number.
Bring them on.
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