One of the things that happens in life comes when we gain new levels of experience which make us say, "Wow, I had no idea." For example, when you were a child you may have had lots of thoughts about your folks and how well (or not) you thought they did as parents. Then you had children of your own and you said to yourself, "I had no idea." Or, perhaps you are a person who dreamed of starting your own business. You may have seen others who had their own successful businesses, and you figured it was something you'd do one day. So you embarked on the journey and in a short time you found yourself saying (or thinking) "Wow, I had no idea" how much work it takes. This pattern of coming to the point where you say, "Wow, I had no idea" is a normal part of life for those who pay attention as they mature. Maybe you lose one of your parents to death, and then you remember some conversations you had with a friend who's mother died who had told you it was hard. Well, when you lose your own parent, you grieve and realize the depth of it and say to yourself, "I had no idea."
If this is true with normal experiences of human life - imagine how it might be when we meet God. See, in each of these normal life experiences, it's not that you knew nothing of the topic at hand, it's just that you hadn't experienced it first hand. When you did though, you began to say "I had no idea." The Bible suggests a similar experience awaits us regarding meeting God when we enter Heaven. It says, "No eye has seen, no ear has heard, what God has prepared for those who love him." (1 Cor 2:9) In other words, we can expect to get there and say, "Wow... I had no idea." Not that we hadn't heard about Heaven's experience or thought about it - it's just that when it's first-hand it's a whole lot different, much bigger than our small-by-comparison thoughts could have grasped.
Finally - this makes me think of Christmas. What is really happening here - this small baby in a manger in a tiny village. We try to grasp the magnitude but it's hard to do, even with the assistance of Christmas carols and Bible texts. The Bible suggests people talked about the baby, some revered him, others had little recognition of his magnitude or majesty. Who is this child in the manger? Who is he really? Well, a little later in the New Testament we read "He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross." (Colossians 1:15-20)
There we have it. This is who the baby is. Wow. We had no idea.
