Satisfied with Mystery

For You, Lord, have made me glad through Your work; I will triumph in the works of Your hands. O Lord, how great are Your works! Your thoughts are very deep. Psalm 92:4-5 NKJV.

“For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,” says the Lord. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, And My thoughts than your thoughts. Isaiah 55:8-9 NKJV.

Are you and I satisfied? Are we? Are we content, fulfilled, happy, pleased, filled with the joy of the Lord? One thing is for sure, if we immerse ourselves in the daily news and world events, we will not find any peace and satisfaction there.

To help me understand this I thought of it in terms of these three things.

1)  The Peace of Mystery – Secret.

This is an interesting subject. I read the other day, Your thoughts are very deep. Psalm 92:4-5 NKJV.

God’s thoughts are very deep, and they are the starting point for everything God does. The wonderful works of God, His great works, start with thoughts in His mind. Everything God does is not random, impulsive, speculative, but sourced from a deep place, unfathomable to the human intelligence. God’s thoughts, are the thoughts of God – who is omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient, omni-everything. And the limited space of the human mind and thoughts cannot plunge the depths, now sore the heights, nor scale the vastness of the mountains of His thoughts. And the good thing is, everything God does, His works, starts first as a thought in His heart.

Then I read this.

“For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,” says the Lord. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, And My thoughts than your thoughts. Isaiah 55:8-9 NKJV.

Then these three words struck me (I believe I heard them from someone, possibly Bill Johnson).

Live with mystery.

There are some things we just don’t know, and maybe will never know. I am one of those who just have to know. I try to work it out, to figure it out, to discover the answer to things. But, there are perhaps many things that God knows but we don’t, and He chooses not to reveal to us. In such cases, we need to be content, to know that we don’t know, but to be at peace with that position.

The level of revelation God gives you, will always be equal to the level of mystery you’re willing to live with.
– Bill Johnson, speaking after his wife passed away,

Not knowing a piece of information, does not change who God is, or anything about who He is or what He does. He is still God, the Lord, Almighty. And everything about Him and His workings in our lives are just the same. He is still loving, forgiving, merciful, righteous, He is still Truth. He is still our provider, and is committed to leading and guiding us.

Living with the burning question, living with the not knowing, and being at total peace and rest in that space, is a wonderful place of security and rest with God.

2) The Power of Manifestation – Seeing.

Then I read this. Blessed is the man whom You instruct, O Lord, And teach out of Your law, Psalm 94:12 NKJV.

There was a time when we didn’t know something, but, as God instructed us, we came to know. What was previously unknown, became known.

The law, God’s word, is the source, the origin of the material that is taught, it is the fountain of doctrine, it is the well of truth that is taught and in which we are instructed. We receive a revelation, the seeing of things we once didn’t see. What a privilege to be a student of God, sitting under the tutelage of the Holy Spirit, the Teacher.

3) The Promise of Meaning – Security.

Mystery, or Manifestation; I am happy with both. God by His Holy Spirit gives the revelation, the unfolding, the revealing of the meaning of many things. But He also is the holder of mystery, He is the One in whom the understanding of all mystery resides, and He is the One in whom is the wisdom to know what to reveal or hold in mystery, and when to reveal and bring meaning to the mystery.

Oh the security of resting in Him, being satisfied with mystery and being satisfied with the revelation when He brings it.

Let a man so consider us, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God. 1 Corinthians 4:1 NKJV.

When God does open, reveal, and communicate things to us, we are to steward, to guard, to respect, to manage, to protect, to look after, to handle correctly, to acknowledge who’s revelation it really is; God’s and not ours. Any revelation is not ours at all, it is God’s. It is the Holy Spirit’s.

Leadership is in the privileged place of being ones to whom God gives a measure of knowledge of the mysteries. In that place of leadership responsibility God also gives revelation responsibility. So leadership is not just about leading people and programmes, or is also about stewarding precepts and principles.

And He said, “To you it has been given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God, but to the rest it is given in parables, that ‘Seeing they may not see, And hearing they may not understand.’ Luke 8:10 NKJV.

Here’s a fascinating truth. There’s a piece of knowledge God the Father has which He has not shared with the Son. The Father and the Son share everything, they are one, they are in total unity. Yet there is something the Father knows which He has not shared with the Son.

But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but My Father only. Matthew 24:36 NKJV.

The Father knows the time of the rapture and the second coming of Jesus, but even Jesus doesn’t know when that will be. So the Father knowing and the Son not knowing, does not change anything about their relationship. There’s still absolute unity, trust and love between them.

My friend, lets press in to God, seek Him, and He will give revelation, He will open to us His word. Let’s be passionate about learning, discovering, seeing, understanding especially God’s truth and His word.

But at the same time, let’s not fret, become upset, feel pressure that we just have to know, that we have to have all the answers. We don’t. If and when God choses to reveal things, great!  When He doesn’t still great!

Let’s learn the art if being like a child, at rest, at peace, with complete trust and satisfied at just being there in the Father’s arms.