That Epistle you just heard read is one of the shortest Epistles you are ever going to hear read in Church, but it is one of the greatest examples of those few, but critical, bits in the Bible, those "this may seem too obvious, but it still needs to be said" bits of Scripture. It is St. Paul admitting that he doesn't, he can't, understand everything about God and God's mysterious ways. And if he doesn't understand it all, there is no chance we will. But some of us do try, and try too hard.

Whenever you find yourself on that terrible brink, about to say: "I understand God" stop - you don't. You never will.

If you are on the brink of despair and about to say, "Geez, I just don't understand God", stop - good! Right! You are not supposed to understand God.

We all hear about, or have even heard, any one of those fervid TV Preachers doing something humans aren't supposed to do - talk about God, leaving no loose ends, talking about the "depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God" as if they had any idea!

Nevertheless, some do attempt, or at least clearly intend, to explain ... God ... and his ways! Devout, well-meaning men (very rarely women - who are clearly too sensible to go for the impossible), but men, mostly, trying to explain ... God. Even Einstein, indisputably smarter than all of them ... come on ... sought to describe Reality, so clear in his own fantastic mind that was all he could ever hope to do - knowing full well that he could never hope explain Reality, or why Reality is the way it is.

St. Paul also would never assume, presume, he was trying to explain God or tell us why things are the way they are - despite his knowing full-well that things are often not well in this world, not right in these lives of ours. Not well at all. Never fully right.

He wrote Romans the immortal epistle to ... well ... Romans, flesh and blood real people, who were alive, and often upset, sometimes frightened, and definitely mortal.

He admits he doesn't know, and suggests, no insists, that no one does, or could - understand God, or his ways: "O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God. How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! For who has known the mind of the Lord?"

Well, there are people who do think they have, who do make that claim, that they have known, they do know, and now are telling us. But they aren't really doing that, 'cause they can't.

Who has known the mind of the Lord? No one, is the obvious answer to such an obvious question. No one, no pastor, no priest, no bishop, no people, no angels - no one knows the mind of God, no one understands him or can.

He, and his ways, are, as St. Paul notes, not just inscrutable, but positively unsearchable, you are not even to search for an explanation, much less let on you have come up with one.

You are a human being, if you understand God, comprehend him, then you are his equal, you are as smart as God, and that just isn't so. If it is so, then I want to know you, but I no longer want to know him.

However, it is unhelpful and obnoxious just to say, welllll, you can't understand God, or his ways, so don't try, and just go on your way accepting whatever happens to you, serenely saying, "well, it is all a mystery." If a loving God can be fully and completely understood by mere mortals then he not really God. If you cannot understand anything about him, are not allowed to ask any questions, well, then he may well be god but he is not all that loving. You need St. Paul's modesty and good sense, coupled with the Psalmist's certainty and faith. Paul rightly reminds us we cannot fully understand the inscrutable, indeed unsearchable, riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God. But the Psalmist, in that psalm this morning, reminds us rightly that part of the riches of that wisdom and knowledge of God that we do have leads the Psalmist to believe, and he encourages us to believe that wonderful assurance at the end of his psalm, the last verse of Psalm 138 - "Though the Lord be high, he cares for the lowly, though I walk in the midst of trouble, the Lord keeps me safe" The Psalmist doesn't pretend to understand God anymore than St. Paul does, but he reminds us that nevertheless he, and we too, believe, understand, know, that the Lord will "make good his purpose for me", that "the love of the Lord endures forever."

We may hear from our dearest friends, beloved family, even the odd pulpit, that despite everything, things will be all right, somehow. Even though these comforters know full well that the world is not all right and never was and never will be, but it did not make these comforters and believers liars, or fools, and that comfort is not an illusion. Hearing those words, seeing that faith in others, gives us hope and courage and faith, and the belied, the right, good belief, that in some way, in God's way, the best way, things are all right and we can rest in peace, full of hope.

I am convinced as I know you are, that we do have this comfort from God - that he does care for the lowly, that he will keep us safe as we walk in the midst of trouble, that he will, in the end, make good his purpose for us. But we also join with St. Paul in knowing that there are times, there have to be, other times and other things that hurt and confuse us and make us wonder if we understand God, and as quickly remind us that we do not, and cannot, understand him fully or perfectly, or completely, but that we can trust in the unsearchable riches of his wisdom and knowledge, and rely on his eternal and unending love. Our faith does not make life perfect, but it does make it better and more hopeful, and in the end, that is the thing that will save us.