Muddling Through Mystery

Most remember Solomon's classic words in Ecclesiastes 3:1-8: for everything, there is a season.

But few remember the verses that follow, in which Solomon’s shares the outcome of seasons, in partnership with God:

“[God] has made everything beautiful in its time.  He has also set eternity in the human heart, yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.  I know there is nothing better for people than to be happy and do good while they live.  That each of them may eat and drink and find satisfaction in all their toil – this is the gift of God.  I know that everything God does will endure forever; nothing can be added to it and nothing can be taken away…”  (Ecclesiastes 3:11-14).

The ‘headline’ in Solomon’s words is God’s promise to make everything beautiful in its time. Or more literally, to fulfill His promises “…within ‘suitable’....time…” e.g. proper, opportune time.   

Solomon strongly infers: suitable, opportune time, is time released into the care of a Sovereign God, rather than time, we manufacture – for “…no one can fathom what God has done [or will do] from beginning to end…”  (Ecclesiastes 3:11).  

So there is a bearing in this text for us to ‘take our time,’ since we do not determine time; we're only able to release time, anticipatory of a beautiful outcome, in which we “…find satisfaction…[as] the gift of God…”  (Ecclesiastes 3:13)

       

But note the sourcing:  satisfaction is a gift of God.  Thus, we are called to live within God’s timing and not our timing.  Frankly, that’s wildly frustrating as we’re expected to move forward into unknown territory led by a guide we cannot control.   

But we sure try to control.  I remember as a high schooler traveling with Donovan Beachley Sr. and his wife, to the Annual Conference of our denomination (the Church of the Brethren), held that year, in Louisville, KY.   As a leading businessman in my hometown of Hagerstown, MD. Don Beachley was a commanding presence, always in control.  I remember at one point in our journey, Don Beachley felt out of control.  Driving around and around in a parking garage in Louisville, there was no parking spot to be found.  Finally, Don Beachley approached a parking garage attendant and asked him to help us find a parking space.  “I’m sorry, there are no more parking spots.”  And with that, Don Beachley looked back at me and winked. “Watch this Paul!” as he pulled out a $50.00 dollar bill, and handed it to the parking attendant.  “I think you can find us a parking space, now!” “Yes, sir I think I can!”; and sure enough, a parking spot miraculously appeared.  

Frankly, I’ve been using Don Beachley’s technique all my life; oh not literally, but figuratively, as I’ve employed various means to control and influence folks to get where I want to go.   But here’s the rub:  God is not interested in my $50.00 bill.   God is only interested in ‘the currency of me’; whether I’m willing to spend time with Him, on His terms.

Spending time with God, on His terms, requires muddling through mystery. This is so deeply difficult.   Why if you were on a guided tour through the Alps, you’d not only know the credentials of your guide, you’d have an itinerary prepared by the guide, providing not only a general sense of where you were going, but a specific sense, complete with precise sight-seeing destinations, specific arrival and departure times, even the menus related to your next culinary stop.  But as we journey with God -- though there’s a general sense of where we're going -- and yes, clarity about His credentials -- there’s an eerie sense of the unknown, and a restless emotion of mystery.  

In Job 11, Zophar wishes this was not the case for Job.  “Oh, how I wish that God would speak, that he would open his lips…and disclose to you the secrets of wisdom...“Can you fathom the mysteries of God? Can you probe the limits of the Almighty? They are higher than the heavens above—what can you do? They are deeper than the depths below—what can you know? Their measure is longer than the earth and wider than the sea…”  (Job 11:5-9).

What Zophar underscores, is the unknown quality of God; because God is ‘other,’ there are aspects of God that will always be unknown, beyond our grasp.  Thus, though we celebrate the God we know, we confess: there are details of God, we will never know; there will always be mystery.  

This mysterious aspect of the divine has been classically defined by Rudolph Otto as the mysterium tremendum:  “Let us consider the deepest and most fundamental element in all strong and sincerely felt religious emotion…[the] mysterium tremendum.  The feeling of it may at times come sweeping like a gentle tide, pervading the mind with a tranquil mood of deepest worship....It may burst in sudden eruption up from the depths of the soul in spasms and convulsions, or lead to the strangest excitements…In has wild and demonic forms and can sink to an almost grisly horror and shuddering….It may become the hushed, trembling, and speechless humility of the creature in the presence of – whom or what?  In the presence of that which is a mystery inexpressible and above all creation…”  Rudolph Otto.  The Idea of the Holy (London:  Oxford University Press, 1970) 12-13.

Otto’s point is paramount to our God-walk.  For we never move with God, unless we acknowledge there's a part of God – Divine Details – which we’ll never know’; there is mystery. 

Frankly, without this acute assumption, we’ll never ‘make it’ with God through any season; rather we'll stall because parts of the itinerary are ill-defined.   

And so we need to fess up:   there are parts of God that are puzzling, and unfathomable.

But that's OK, for though God, in part, is 'mystery' -- God will guide -- for God does know the way.