Living on Mystery

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When I was perhaps ten, I went through a phase in which I inhaled mystery books.  I voraciously read as it was, but for some reason, the mystery genre was the bee’s knees for that time in my life.  I sprawled on my stomach on my pink carpet and read and read.  I didn’t stop until I was certain who was the culprit behind the cat-stealing or the candle-waving in the window or any other such innocent mystery. 

 

Mikaela and I even wrote an entire mystery book, at least one hundred pages long, which involved two twin girls and a mysterious chopping sound in the woods.  At the end of every chapter, we inserted several questions to give the opportunity for the reader to put together the clues and solve the mystery. 

 

Pure genius.

 

And perhaps all that infatuation with mystery now explains why I was scared spitless to venture out after dark to close up the chicken coop.  Hmmmm…

 

But it also illustrates a very real point that humans thrive on mystery.  I was struck with this insight on Sunday while playing a favorite hymn at church.  The final verse of the hymn says,

 

"I know not when my Lord may come,

At night or noonday fair,

Nor if I'll walk the vale with Him,

Or meet Him in the air."

I have no idea if I will die or if I will get to be raptured to Heaven with the rest of the believers.  I have no clue if I will get married or whom I will marry.  I’m in the dark about what color the sky will be tomorrow or if we’ll have an unseasonably late snowfall. 

 

But that's just the fun of it.  Don't those mysteries give you a zest for life as you wait to see what God does tomorrow? 

 

God did give us confidence in Him, and He clued us in to the important things that we need to know.  Colossians 1:25b-27 says,

“The word of God, the mystery which has been hidden from ages and from generations, but now has been revealed to His saints. To them God willed to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles: which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.”

But other things, He purposefully left in mystery because therein lies the joy of life.  He could have made the color of the sky to correspond with the day of the week, or the rapture to fall precisely on a prophesied day.  But once you read the end of the book, the point of reading is lost.  Likewise, although God has revealed the ultimate triumph of the ultimate Protagonist, there are many whos, whats, whens, and wheres that we have yet to discover. 

 

The problem is, we often view life as one long dreary roll of toilet paper, unrolling predictably to the next perfectly square, routine, white day.  That is a lie.  In truth, God is hand-embroidering each day to His design, and no day is ever quite like another, because no day is just about what you accomplish therein.

 

Last week I held for the first time a beautiful baby girl who had just breathed her first gaspful of oxygen only days before.  A mystery.  Today I sweated while I endeavored to interpret whether my recipe for chocolate mousse which called for “whip cream” meant “whipped” or “whipping.”  I deduced whipped, correctly solved the mystery, and stand by my opinion on the importance of suffixes.  A mystery.  Tomorrow I teach the same children I taught last week, but I have no idea what stories they have to bring me, what dedication they have to show me, or what character issues they will have to work on.  A wonderful mystery.  As for the next day, I do not even know enough to guess what mysteries God will bring me! 

 

Although mysteries are far from my current go-to reading genre, I’m now realizing that it would be accurate to say that I still inhale mysteries or that, in point of fact, I quite live on them. 

P.S.--Speaking of mysteries, what do you think of all the mysterious changes going on around here?  We're not quite done tweaking, but are loving the new look!  Also, don't forget to enter our giveaway before you leave!

Photo Credit: Ignacio Conejo
Scripture taken from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.