Job 11:7 “Can you fathom the mysteries of God? Can you probe the limits of the Almighty?”
This past summer, our 4-year old grandson came to our house for a visit. When we went to the grocery store, I told Tobin he could pick out one item for himself. He chose a stuffed baby giraffe. But when he returned to his home a few days later, he realized the giraffe was not in his suitcase. I looked under couches, chairs and beds, all to no avail. The little critter had vanished.
It appeared the mystery of the lost giraffe would remain unsolved. Until recently. That’s when Tobin came for another visit. We got out all the old Tonka trucks and tractors he likes to play with. The next morning, when I went into the room where all the cars and bulldozers lay strewn across the floor, I spotted the lost giraffe! Evidently, Tobin had stuffed it in the eighteen-wheeler carrier and forgot about it. Mystery solved!
We all love to see mysteries solved, don’t we? As humans, we want to figure out the who, what, when, where and how’s of life. Solomon said it’s the glory of God to conceal a matter and the glory of kings to search it out (Proverbs 25:2).
But I’m afraid if not careful, our search for answers will squeeze out the sense of mystery. Mark Buchanan writes in Your God Is Too Safe, the Christian faith is “based on staggering mysteries—the Trinity, the Incarnation, the Cross and Resurrection, the imparting of the Spirit….” Rather than embracing such mysteries, we become pragmatists. We start demanding answers from God before we’re willing to trust him.
Job’s friend, Zophar, challenged him to consider the unfathomable mysteries of God. Although Zophar got a lot of things wrong in his assessment of Job, he was right in pointing out the importance of not limiting a limitless God to our understanding. Some things will never be grasped in this lifetime. God is infinite. We are not.
Buchannan believes the “de-mysterious-ization” of Scripture stifles our imagination. It causes us to view Christianity as a methodical duty to be obeyed rather than an ongoing adventure to be discovered.
So although we might lose stuffed giraffes, let’s not lose life’s wonder.