David Y: Untitled

 Psalm 16:11 (ESV)

11 You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

One of the greatest struggles I experienced in 2025 was my striving to understand everything; how to lead and love my wife, how to lead my ministry, how to love people well, how to make sense of brokenness, how to lead the Creative Arts ministry at church, and how to retain and apply the theological knowledge I was learning in seminary. I felt an internal pressure to understand every problem and situation in front of me from beginning to end.

Ultimately, this striving led to an internal madness. Near the end of last year, I remember repeating to myself for weeks on end while serving, attempting to love others, and studying theology; “I don’t know anything; I don’t know anything; I don’t know anything.” Part of me felt guilty for not having answers to my life and to this world, and the burden of wanting to have the answers to life felt heavy on my shoulders. As a seminarian, a husband and a leader, I believed I always needed to see things through to their end. While 2025 held many moments of joy, it also carried intense sorrow that I am still wrestling with because I cannot fully make sense of the brokenness or understand how God is working in the midst of certain situations.

It wasn’t until recently, while dialoguing with God and repeating to Him, “I don’t know anything,” that I realized my striving to understand though originally intended to draw me closer to God and make me a stronger disciple had become an idol in my heart. This idol was not leading me toward Him; it was pushing me away from Him. I no longer trusted God simply because He is a God full of mystery, glory, and power. Instead, my trust had shifted toward how much I thought I knew and understood about Him, and that shift ultimately left me frustrated and empty.

This year, I repented before God for my idol of understanding. As I near the end of seminary, I can say that I have learned more theology about God than ever before but not all of it has translated into a deeper love for Him. At the same time, the more I have learned, the more I have realized how much about God remains unknown. Rather than being frustrated by this, I want to do the very opposite. I want to lean into the mystery of God. I want to learn to gaze again at the wonder of His glory again, instead of feeling that I must grasp all knowledge of Him in order to love, worship and serve Him well.

Christ did not die on a cross so that I might merely understand His sacrifice intellectually; He died on the cross so that I might be in relationship with Him; to be a child of the KING. And He has given me something far better than a path to just knowledge and knowing.

He has given me a path to a true, peaceful, rich, sacrificial, purposeful, satisfied, loving, and eternal life. And every day that I awake, He invites me to set my gaze at the wonder of His presence, where there is a fullness of joy that cannot be found anywhere else but in Him.