mystery

It’s human nature to think that what we know on a topic is all there is to know. That’s what makes us so confident when we debate immigration or health care or climate change or special counsel investigations. We speak with confidence because we don’t see how limited our own knowledge is.

But there is much in this world that we can’t understand. I think that’s one of the things I get out of Revelation every time I read it. Look at this, from Revelation 10:4-7: 

“And when the seven thunders spoke, I was about to write; but I heard a voice from heaven say, ‘Seal up what the seven thunders have said and do not write it down.’

“Then the angel I had seen standing on the sea and on the land raised his right hand to heaven. And he swore by him who lives for ever and ever, who created the heavens and all that is in them, the earth and all that is in it, and the sea and all that is in it, and said, ‘There will be no more delay! But in the days when the seventh angel is about to sound his trumpet, the mystery of God will be accomplished, just as he announced to his servants the prophets.’”

I can just hear CNN and Fox with two completely different takes on what the seven thunders said, those things that were never recorded for us. In fact, someone would claim to have special insider knowledge and would tell us. And then we’d all fight about it on social media.

But this world is God’s handiwork, and human history is simply the detail of his fight against evil. People come and go, nations rise and fall, all as part of Satan’s effort to wreck the good things God made and God’s countermeasures to save for himself a remnant before he remakes the world. And God’s ways are a mystery to us.

When we refuse to recognize the infinite variation in the ways we relate to each other and all the nuance that comes with it, we’ll never understand complex social issues. And when we deny that God is at work in all of it, then we miss the very element most likely to bring us understanding.

I need to work on more humility in my conversation. I need to stop looking for certainty and instead try to see mystery, because where God is there will be mystery.