“Can you solve the mysteries of God?”
Job 11:7
As a child, I was not very talented or gifted. I really had no natural aptitude for anything. I do remember my parents hired a piano teacher to try to show me how to tickle the ivories; but after a few weeks, she advised them they shouldn’t waste any more of their money. I had no natural affinity for any sort of sports. Nor any creative abilities. However, there was one thing that peeked my interest and grabbed my attention – mysteries. In particular, mystery books. Agatha Christie guided my mind through a maze of all sorts of riddles to solve. I read and reread The Hardy Boys mysteries. And I devoured Nancy Drew mysteries. I couldn’t get enough deciphering, decoding, and decrypting. To this day, I still enjoy problem solving.
I believe that may be part of the reason I love reading, studying, and teaching the Bible. To me, God is not a mystery. His word clearly teaches who he is – both his attributes and his character. Nor is he ambiguous about what he asks or expects of us. The Bible clearly lays out what he states is sin, as well as righteousness. To me God is not a mystery at all. However, the ways in which he works are. When God wanted his people freed from slavery in Egypt in order to make them his peculiar nation, he marched a murderer with a speech impediment right up to Pharaoh’s throne and demanded their release. Go figure! When God wanted to get Nebuchadnezzar, king of the Babylonian empire’s attention, he allowed three of his chosen Hebrew children to be thrown into a fiery furnace. Then he jumped in there with them. Remarkable! And when God was ready to deliver us from our sin, he wrapped himself in human flesh, nailed himself to a cross, and died on an isolated hill so that we might live. Amazing!
So many things happen in our lives that leave us scratching our head and asking why. Those things may cause us to question who God is, but to me he is not a mystery, or an enigma, or a secret that needs to be examined and evaluated. However, the way he works, where he works, and the timing of his working do keep me in suspense. Therefore, I believe there is only one thing any of us can do with the God that holds his mysterious ways so close to himself. That one thing is – worship him!
Darlene