The Explorers
I’ve heard it said (as you probably have too) that space is the final frontier. But is it really?
With the recent discovery of gravitational waves in deep space and last year’s pass by of Pluto in our own cosmic neighborhood, exploration is, once again, in the forefront of our minds. From the dawn of mankind, we have longed to seek out and discover new ideas and territories. Our checklist is relatively impressive: the seven seas, the deepest caves, the tallest mountains, the furthest edges of our own Solar System. You get the picture: Man has a thirst to know — to explore -”to boldly go where no one has gone before.” It is one of our endearing characteristics, no doubt drafted into our blueprint by the great Architect, Himself.
God has designed us to explore. But why?
Perhaps the answer is simple. Maybe the Creator has placed exploration at the core of our beings with the primary intent of finding Him. Certainly, He wants us to seek out His will and to discover, as the Apostle Paul said, “how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge…” Paul didn’t stop there, though. He also said that the purpose of knowing this inconceivable love is so, “that [we] may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.” (Ephesians 3:14–21)
When I was a child I thought that one day, when I got to Heaven, I would know everything. I had this notion that, upon entering those Pearly Gates, I would be, somehow, omniscient. All the mysteries of the cosmos made known in a split second! As great as this may seem, I no longer think I was right. Now I realize that the only one who knows it all is God. No, it seems more reasonable to think that we will eternally be exploring the characteristics of God, all the while discovering something new about Him that we didn’t know before. I think this is the primary reason we have been wired to explore.
When writing about what Heaven might be like in his final installment of The Chronicles of Narnia, C.S. Lewis spoke of a grand and endless Kingdom. As some of the characters enter this Land they travel at the speed of thought, flying across expansive plains, oceans and mountain ranges, alike, always headed ever inward. They are met with a profound understanding — that this Kingdom is, in fact, endless and that they will always be traveling “Further up and further in,” thus showing that there will always, always, always be more of God to discover! This is, perhaps, the crux of why we were created — to know God and then continually discover our Maker as we praise Him forevermore!
