Have you ever figured out why life has happened the way that it has?  I mean think about it… what has recently happened in your life that has left you scratching your head wondering, “why in the world did that happen?”  For me it was a good buddy of mine who moved away.  He was more than just a friend, he was someone who I was able to really “let down my hair with” (I know… I shave my head, and I don’t have hair… just go with it) and just be me.  I shared my biggest fears in life, and my craziest goals with him.  We’ve laughed together, and cried together.  We’ve enjoyed some really great times together.  Yet, now he’s gone.  I get it why he left for him.  But I don’t understand why for me.  It seemed like God had provided me a friend, and a mentor.  Why in the world would God take that away from me?  What was it for you?  What left you scratching your head wondering why?

This past June I graduated from Biblical Seminary.  I have spent the last 3 years of my life pouring over books, writing countless papers, spending hundreds of hours in class listening to Prof’s and participating in discussions with the express purpose of knowing more about God and His mission here on Earth.  Sometimes I feel like we try to figure God out so much that we actually reduce Him to something that we can comprehend!  It’s a weird question, I know, but would you want to have a God that you could completely figure out?

Have you left room for the mystery of God?

One of my prof’s, Derek Cooper, wrote in his book Hazardous,

“We are all familiar with the adage that God works in mysterious ways, yet it is sometimes incredible how mysterious God can be.  This leads me to a difficult question: how are we to respond to God when we cannot fully see what God is doing in this world?”

When God is acting mysteriously we need to choose, will we trust God or will we doubt Him?  At Liquid Church we have a staff philosophy that when there is a void in a relationship, task, or responsibility that we will choose trust over suspicion.  When those voids come up we will undoubtably fill them with something.  The question is what, trust or suspicion?  The same thing is true when it relates to God.  When He is being all mysterious and God-like, will we choose to trust Him or be suspicious of Him?

Who knows God may do something incredible in the midst of your mystery.  See that’s just it.  It really isn’t that God doesn’t know what He is doing.  It is that we do not know what He is up to!  Romans 11:34 says, “For who can know the LORD’s thoughts? Who knows enough to give him advice?”

Let’s stop trying to figure God out completely and let’s start experiencing Him.  It’s time we start trusting and embracing the mystery of who He is!  Besides, I think it is more fun that way…

So, what is the hardest part for you?  Trusting?  The mystery?  Or the space in between?

~Peter