The Mystery

In case you haven’t noticed, there sure do seem to be a lot of shows on television today that involve solving crimes or other mysteries. Between Law & Order, Law & Order: SVU, CSI, CSI:NY, CSI:Miami, Criminal Minds, NCIS, Cold Case and the countless others that I’m not privy to without cable, it’s evident that we are a culture that likes a good mystery.

I remember the good ole days of Matlock, Murder She Wrote, and Perry Mason – man, we’ve come a long way since then! There’s something about watching these shows that draws us in and keeps us hypothesizing and guessing until the mystery has finally been unravelled towards the final 5 to 10 minutes.

God is a fascinating mystery.

As I continue to travel this grief journey, I’ve been thinking so much about God’s will, his sovereignty, and why he allows suffering and pain. It’s been fascinating to search scripture and dig into this more, but the reality is that God is an unsolved mystery.

Don’t get me wrong, we know a lot about him from his Word. The Holy Spirit also grants us wisdom and knowledge. But, when it comes down to it, we must at some point come to grips with the mystery and learn to live with it.

In case I haven’t mentioned it before, my mind can sometimes get the better of me. This hasn’t always been the case.

As a child, I took things at face value. I distinctly remember my mother talking to me one night before bed. She asked me if I wanted to go to heaven when I died. Of coarse, I said YES! She explained to me that I must ask Jesus to forgive me of my sins and that I would be able to go to heaven once I had done this. That night, I prayed a very child-like prayers and asked Jesus to forgive my sins. It’s been an awesome journey ever since.

As I grew, many of the things I simply believed in faith as a child started to click in my mind. I began to understood why it was important that Jesus was conceived of the Holy Spirit and born of a virgin and why it was important that my sin be paid for in order to be in the presence of a holy God….things like that.

I think it’s great to search scripture and seek the Lord for answers to our questions about faith, our circumstances, and life. But, it’s so easy for me to get wrapped in all that and loose sight of the mystery of God.

So why does he choose to be mysterious?

I’m not going to begin to claim to know the answer to that. But, in my human mind, I think it may come back to faith.

As a child of God, we are now in a relationship with the God of the universe. How cool is that??!!

But part of what makes a good relationship is faith and trust. How can I have a deep and meaningful relationship with my husband if I have no trust in him?

I think the same is true with the Lord. Yes, that relationship begins with accepting the fact that we are sinners needing forgiveness that only Jesus can offer. But, how deep will our relationship be if we have no trust. And the crazy thing is, he is COMPLETELY trustworthy! We put our faith and trust in so many things that AREN’T trustworthy, yet we are so apprehensive about trusting the only person who is really worthy of it.

After all that God has done for me, all he asks is that I have a little faith.

In many ways, the mystery is also part of what draws me to the Lord.

When I met Kevin for the first time, I was intrigued. I was very unsure, but I was curious about this man who showed interest in me. I wanted to learn more about him.

Perhaps God wants to remain mysterious so that we continue to seek him daily until we meet him face to face!! Regardless of the reason why, we can’t allow the mystery to hinder our faith. Does God really owe us the answers anyway? Though we can certainly ask, we must be at peace with not knowing the answers.

Like I mentioned earlier, sometimes my mind is all over the place so I have no idea if this post is even making sense to anyone else but me! 🙂

As Nancy Guthrie puts it,