Move Forward // Renew Your Relationship With GodSample

Better Get Used to Mystery

We men go through lengthy stretches of our lives with an “I’ve got this” posture. We convince ourselves we know what’s best in any particular situation or what’s right against any particular problem. We convince ourselves that we “get it.” We maintain this belief . . . until we can’t anymore . . . until we find we don’t actually know all that we think we know. We maintain it until we finally face the reality that God is God and we are not.

“I am the Lord, who made all things, 

who alone stretched out the heavens, 

who spread out the earth by myself, 

who frustrates the signs of liars

   and makes fools of diviners,

who turns wise men back

   and makes their knowledge foolish.” (Isaiah 44:24-25)

Never can we have God’s knowledge or wisdom. Because of who He is, because of who we are, there’ll always be a tremendous amount of mystery in the relationship. We must be willing to accept and embrace it—and not let it become an impediment. We may “need” to know why something is the way it is or why something happened the way it did, but most times we simply cannot—and still we must believe, and still we must obey. To be in right relation to God we must instead adopt a posture of “I don’t know . . . and I’ll do what he asks nonetheless.”

Okay, so what do we do?

Fill in the following blanks, brother, according to your story: 

I don’t know why ____________ happened, but I’ll trust God nonetheless. I don’t know why I had to experience ____________, but I’ll love him nonetheless. I don’t know why I am experiencing ____________ right now, but I’ll follow him nonetheless. I don’t know why he is pushing me out of what’s comfortable by ____________, but I’ll go nonetheless.