Here is the revelation that is shaping my life today – explaining mystery is not knowing intellectually but an invitation to a knowledge of the heart.
Ephesians 6:19 NLT
[19] And pray for me, too. Ask God to give me the right words so I can boldly explain God’s mysterious plan that the Good News is for Jews and Gentiles alike.
Observation
Mystery! Not something we are all comfortable with. Knowing gives me control, certainty, and security, so I look to solve mystery so I can move into this place. This is the trap, take the mystery of God and solve it with a version of truth that gives me security. The challenge then is I need to defend my truth, and often I defend my truth by judging yours, and argumentation that makes us divide and separate.
Can we discover again the beauty of mystery? Can we become comfortable with mystery? Mystery has an explanation, Paul asks that he may be able to “boldly explain God’s mysterious plan,” but this does not mean the solving of mystery, it means the invitation into mystery. We cannot understand all that God does. We know God because He made himself completely knowable in Jesus, the exact representation of God in a form we can comprehend, flesh. God is not mysterious in our knowing Him, He is mysterious in His ways. This is partly because we do no5 have the capacity to comprehend the interconnectedness and randomness of the interactions of life and they wa6 the spiritual realm intersects with the physical. We are children trying to understand calculus when it comes to comprehending the mystery of God’s interactions.
The beauty of mystery is that it invites us into a knowing that is beyond purely intellect. God never intended to be intellectually known, He always intended to be intimately known. It’s like the mystery of the power of a sunrise, you are moved deeply by it but cannot necessarily comprehend its power to move you so. The heart knows things that knowing can not explain. You can know mystery without solving it. When you explain mystery it’s not the invitation to an intellectual knowing it’s the invitation to an intimate encounter that surpasses the knowing capability of my mind. This is why all sharing of God should be postured in an invitation to meet Him, not an explanation that has me look on from afar.
Application
I will not look to solve mystery but invite an experience of it. I will explain mystery in a way that allows mystery to stand, with an invitation to bow to it and experience its power, without the need for solution or intellectual comprehension. I will ensure that I do not replace the mystery of walking with God with an explanation of Him. I will bow to mystery.
Response
Thank you for mystery. Thank you for the invitation of mystery to encounter. Thank you that you want to be intimately known not intellectually understood. Thank you that you are knowable but not fathomable. Thank you that any explanation of mystery leads me into intimacy that opens further mystery. I love this life of intimate mystery.
Meditation
Meditate – God is mysterious.
consider:
How often are you desperate to know, but not to know intimately your God?
How often do you look for answers more than intimacy?
JOURNEY DEEPER
