Mystery: A God Beyond Comprehension
Mystery
A GOD
BEYOND COMPREHENSION
Ever since I took plane geometry in high school, I’ve been itching to understand the fourth dimension. Sound weird? Well, I’ve got this thing about solving mysteries.
You see, I can explain the first dimension—a point in space. The second dimension? A point moving through space creates a line. The third dimension? A line moving through space creates a solid. But the fourth dimension? Well, that’s the mystery. I know it has something to do with Einstein and E = mc2, but even that’s pushing the limits of my brain.
Once a math teacher friend explained it to me. And for a brief, wonderful, illuminating second I almost understood the fourth dimension. But as fleetingly as it came, the answer—enticing and inviting—vanished. I was thrilled beyond belief, yet baffled more than ever.
That’s about as close as I can come to explaining my love/ hate relationship with mysteries. Whether it’s a perplexing mystery novel or a perplexing math problem, mysteries entice me even while they frustrate me.
Take, for instance, those mysterious paradoxes of Scripture.
We have a free will, yet we’re predestined.
We’re positionally perfect, but experientially imperfect.
We work out our own salvation, yet it is God who works His will within us. We’re free in Christ, yet slaves to Christ.
Goodness, even the life of Jesus was a paradox—100 percent God and 100 percent man!
Every time I hear a paradox (something that seems contradictory and yet is quite true), I hanker to get my hands on it and shake some sense into it. Something about a paradox is tantalizing, yet irritating; it’s a truth standing on its head to get attention, and I feel I must grab it and turn it right side up.
Something in me has to make enigmas understandable … puzzles, comprehensible … riddles, solvable … mysteries, known. No words describe the aching I feel when I almost, but not quite, have the answer; when I’m close, but not really, to understanding it all. It’s a feeling not unlike “tasting” the answer to a difficult math problem!
It’s like this: I have an itching to understand Colossians 1:26, which says we have been given “the mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations, but is now disclosed to the saints.” Now, that’s an enigma begging to be understood. And who among us can say we fully grasp that mystery?
Then there’s 1 Corinthians 4:1, which assures us that we have been “entrusted with the secret things of God.” I don’t know about you, but that verse seems like a puzzle asking to be solved. Sure, we’ve been entrusted with the secret things of God; but which one of us knows all those secrets?
Or how about Ephesians 1:9? That verse tells us God has “made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ.” To me, that verse is a mind-boggler craving to be unraveled. Yes, God has made known to us the mystery of His will; but is there anyone who can honestly say they understand that mystery inside and out?
See what I mean?
If you identify with me, then we’re partners in puzzle solving. You and I are like-minded, Sherlock Holmes types. We are kindred spirits in solving the riddle of the sphinx. We’re the sort of folk who must nail down those brain teasers. The aching you and I feel as we strain to “see through a glass darkly” makes us yearn to know the mysteries of God’s will all the more.
Still, grasping God’s mysteries is not unlike what Southey observed: “It’s a perfect nonplus and baffle to all human understanding.” Whether we like it or not, some of God’s mysteries will forever remain mysteries. Others He has fully revealed. But there are yet others—tantalizing, inviting, alluring—which, every once in awhile, arrive at our doorstep bearing God’s own signature: “This, My child, is for you. Won’t you join Me in a treasure hunt?”
The puzzle pieces are spread before you. The clues of the mystery have been dropped, like hints, here and there. And God, as I have often said, has placed within us that age-old yearning of the spirit, that incurable urge to solve secrets and to delve into mysteries.
I hope you’ll think of these next pages as puzzle pieces in this marvelous mystery of being “entrusted with the secret things of God.” It’s my prayer that you’ll be thrilled by more than a few brief, wonderful, illuminating moments as you see those puzzle pieces begin to fit together.
Who knows? Maybe you’ll discover that searching for the mystery of His will is more enticing, more exciting, more inviting, than you ever imagined.