“It is the glory of God to conceal a thing,” Solomon wrote, “but the honor of kings is to search out a matter” (Proverbs 25:2). God wants His royal people to search out answers and seek after His knowledge. The New Living Translation expresses this more clearly: “It is God’s privilege to conceal things and the king’s privilege to discover them.” God does not give us all the answers. In fact, it is His prerogative to often hide them from us. He wants us to put in the effort to search out His truth. That is our privilege!
Regarding this verse, Lange’s Commentary says that God’s glory is evident in what He reveals and in what He conceals—and perhaps more importantly, in why He conceals a matter. This proverb highlights the tremendous opportunity and responsibility we have as king-priests to take an interest in and discover the things of God. This proverb is about developing curiosity into the things of God!
A Quest for Understanding
Consider Elon Musk. Though many factors contributed to his incredible success, one of his most profitable characteristics is his insatiable curiosity. That curiosity inspires him to question even the mundane, like the development of a lithium battery. He wondered, Could that be put in a car? What else could you do with it? How many of them can you string together to produce that much power?
Most people do not have that response. Generally, people might see something interesting, think, Huh, that’s interesting—and immediately move on. But in people like Elon Musk, curiosity takes off. He becomes fixated on the subject and asks questions like how and why. Curious people crave understanding.
Another individual who craves understanding is Dinesh D’Souza. His speeches are littered with questions, many rhetorical, but they provide insight into the way he thinks. Listening to him speak, you might wonder how he knows so much and how he is able to articulate that knowledge so well. The main reason is that he simply asks a lot of questions. He makes an observation that any one of us is capable of making, but then, he does something that most people do not do—he asks why. This pattern of consistently asking specific questions is evident all through his books and documentaries.
How curious are you? Could you be more curious?
Curiosity requires three main components: interest, humility and discipline. To desire, obtain or excel at anything you must first be interested in it. And being curious about a subject is inherently admitting that we are ignorant of it. That humility puts you into a position of asking more questions and learning. If you do this in a godly manner, you will reason with God for His answers.
Search Out the Things of God
Curiosity is crucial for conversion. That humility will lead you to reason with God for His knowledge. Mr. Armstrong would never have written Mystery of the Ages had he not been curious about those life-defining questions—Who am I? What am I? Why am I?—and no one would have read it were they not interested in answering them.
This is the very reason Satan has worked hard to destroy curiosity. If we are honest with ourselves, we can admit that we are not curious enough. How many observations do we make daily and move on without deeper consideration? How many of those observations should we really be more interested in?
A phenomenal biblical example of curiosity is the prophet Jeremiah. He wrote: “With my whole heart have I sought thee: O let me not wander from thy commandments. … Blessed art thou, O Lord: teach me thy statutes” (Psalm 119:10, 12). He asked to be taught by God multiple times in this psalm. He was curious about the law and truth of God. It takes curiosity to repent and grow in conversion.
There is an enormous lack of curiosity today. Satan has done an effective job at keeping people from developing any interest in anything greater than themselves. The introduction of Mystery of the Ages will not resonate with someone who is not interested in the purpose of man. There was time when most men were intrigued by the question, “Who am I?,” but if you were to visit a college campus today and ask most students that, they would respond with “What does it matter?” How interested are you in this education? In this calling? Are you curious enough about God’s truth?
Consider Mr. Armstrong’s two greatest proofs for God’s existence: Bible prophecy and creation. Could you—at this moment—pick a specific facet of creation, whether the universe or something on the microscopic level, and demonstrate how its laws and design prove there is a Creator? To support the second biggest proof of God’s existence, you must have a curiosity that goes beyond simply: “There is creation, so there must be a Creator.”
What about prophecy? How many of us can thoroughly break down a specific prophecy and connect that to world events? With the greatest proof of God’s existence, how many would not be able to produce one thorough example?
It’s easier for most of us to recall lines from a trivial movie than facts about God’s existence. Why is that? The bottom line is that we simply are not interested enough.
This lack of interest is largely due to what is revealed in Romans 8:7, that the mind without God’s Holy Spirit hates God. You can expand that out to apply to this subject of curiosity: The carnal mind is not interested in the things of God without God! It has no curiosity about God naturally. Although, there can be an intellectual curiosity about God that does not go deeper than superficial knowledge. There are people who are interested in the Bible from a standpoint of vanity and a desire to feel good about themselves, not to let it change their thinking or behavior.
Our interest and passion for God’s truth must go deeper than that. 1 Corinthians 2:10 says, “But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God.” We must go to God and ask Him for His mind and to create within us a curious heart. That is essentially what Jeremiah was asking for in Psalm 119. We must ask God not only for the power to overcome, but also for the desire to do so (Philippians 2:13). If you struggle to have an interest in world events or prophecy, ask God for more curiosity. Don’t try to push through studying these subjects with your carnal mind alone. The desire and curiosity are only going to come from God. Ask Him to create within you a heart interested in the things of God.
Curious about Creation
Beyond wanting to understand God and His plan, are you interested in life? In the way things work? In why things are the way they are? It is not just that we lack curiosity about God, but in the 21st century, curiosity is lacking about life in general. God wants us to be interested people!
Leonardo da Vinci is famous for his interest in everything around him. He wanted to learn how the woodpecker’s tongue wrapped around its brain, or how a cow’s uterus looked. He would wonder about the most bizarre facets of nature and record them in a journal. And not only that, but he would seek them out to study them. His curiosity led him to groundbreaking science that is still valued today. He had a drive and a passion that is not seen amongst people today, particularly the young.
Walter Isaacson wrote in his biography on da Vinci: “… his distinguishing and most inspiring trait was his intense curiosity. He wanted to know what causes people to yawn, how they walk on ice in Flanders, methods for squaring a circle, what makes the aortic valve close, how light is processed in the eye and what that means for the perspective in a painting. He instructed himself to learn about the placenta of a calf, the jaw of a crocodile, the tongue of a woodpecker, the muscles of a face, the light of the moon, and the edges of shadows. Being relentlessly and randomly curious about everything around us is something that each of us can push ourselves to do, every waking hour, just as he did.”
Curiosity Killers
We need to be aware of curiosity killers in our modern world. These can be things like distractions, complacency, laziness, going along with the crowd, the Internet, vanity. Thinking you already know enough about a subject can halt a desire for further learning. The Internet also disrupts our attention span, which affects both our ability to learn and retain interest in a subject.
These curiosity killers decrease not only our interest in learning, but also our ability to remember what we have learned. Studies have shown that there is a connection between curiosity, memory and learning. The more curious we are about something, the more interested we are, the more we will remember about it. We will even recall random details associated with that moment of curiosity, such as our surroundings or other information. Would we learn more in school if we simply came to class more interested in the subjects being taught? What about in our personal study or at Sabbath services?
Coming to class curious begins the night before. Rather than staying up late to finish an assignment, think about how much more you would learn and accomplish if you got enough sleep and had an uplifting prayer in the morning. That curiosity must come from God, and we are not going to acquire it without a solid routine! Make that the priority, and God will bless your interest and learning.
Cultivate Curiosity
So what do Jeremiah, D’Souza, da Vinci, and Musk have in common? It is that at the foundation of their success is curiosity. Why? Because curiosity is simply the desire to know. It precedes factors like education, obedience, answers, invention, wisdom, good relationships, deep thinking, passion, faith and even teaching, which all precede success. Without the spark of curiosity, success would not have been within reach of those individuals. No progress or development is possible without it.
Remember our tremendous opportunity and responsibility as God’s royal people to search out the things of God. Ask Him to help you become more curious in the world around you, in His creation, His plan for mankind, His laws and His truth. Cultivate the curiosity of Jeremiah, D’Souza, da Vinci, and Musk, and with God’s help you will find yourself succeeding even beyond their physical success.