I have subscribed to Justin Camp’s email devotionals (WiRE for Men; part of Gather Ministries) the past couple years. Many of his devos resonate with me and align with our Vital Men purpose and mission. Justin’s devo yesterday (Welcome to the Not-Knowing Club) spoke to me personally and connected with a number of the conversations I have been a part of the past couple months. I am going to share Justin’s message from yesterday. Here it goes:
Better get used to MYSTERY.
Isaiah 55:9 NIV As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.
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.
Isaiah 44:24-25 NIV I am the Lord, the Maker of all things, who stretches out the heavens, who spreads out the earth by myself, who foils the signs of false prophets and makes fools of diviners, who overthrows the learning of the wise and turns it into nonsense
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? 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.
