As a thirteen year old in sunday school, I remember one class where I thought I'd discovered a profound gap in the Bible that would call to question much of whatever it was we were studying. The class teacher had no answer for me so she called in the minister of the church. He was a towering intimidating man, who was as gentle and wise a person as I've ever met. I explained the matter to him in youthful honesty, not trying to claim a 'gotcha', but sincerely wanting to understand.

He looked at me for a moment, then said clearly: "God does not have to explain everything to us. If he wanted us to know that, if he thought it was important for us to know that, he would have told us." He smiled warmly, turned around and walked out.

To this day, I believe his answer was completely correct. My life has been none-the-worse for not having that question answered. As a matter of fact, the answer he gave me has explained a lot of things since that time and helped me to understand more than the answer to the original question ever would have.

Maybe His not providing all the answers to us is God's way of helping us to focus on what is important, versus what is only interesting.

I find myself not really caring so much how Jesus was born, just the fact that he was born is what is both profound and important.

And I'm not particularly religious these days.