That's where we are starting, that's the center, the beginning, the end of all creation, all affairs. If we are not real clear on this point, we are bound to return to darkness and chaos.

J.I. Packer in KNOWING GOD, quotes C.H. Spurgeon, the famed evangelist of the last century:

"The highest science, the loftiest speculation, the mightiest philosophy, which can ever engage our attention is the name, the nature, the person, the work, the doings, and the existence of the great God."

He goes on to emphasize the points we have been making:

"But wait", someone asks, "Is this journey really necessary"? In Spurgeon's day, we know, people found the study interesting, but I find it boring. Why need anyone take time off today for the kind of study you propose?

A fair question! - but there is, I think a convincing answer to it. The questioner clearly assumes that a study of the nature and character of God will be unpractical and irrelevant for life. In fact, however, it is the most practical project one can ever engage in. Knowing God is crucially important for the living of our lives. As it would be cruel to an Amazonian tribesman to fly him to London, put him down without explanation in Trafalgar Square and leave him, as one who knew nothing of English or England, to fend for himself, so we are cruel to ourselves if we try to live in this world without knowing God whose world it is and who runs it. The world becomes a strange, mad, painful place, and life in it a disappointing and unpleasant business, for those who do not know God. Disregard the study of God, and you sentence yourself to stumble and blunder through life blindfolded, as it were, with no sense of direction and no under-standing of what surrounds you. This way you can waste your life and lose your soul.

"Our ignorance of God is too great, because our estimations of God are too little."