I have always loved a good mystery. My insatiable curiosity causes this hunger-to-know to rage within me. I have to know what is around the next bend of the road or river. I have to read a book to the end, in a day if necessary, to find out what happens. Antiques draw me in because of the wonder of life lived in the past. My dreams are puzzles to be unraveled. Once a mystery comes to light, I feel a drive to solve it.
Right now, I have a new mystery on my hands. A friend and I have found a waterfall that we cannot seem to identify. It is a big one we stumbled upon when hiking one day. Way down below the falls we can see a bridge. Therefore, someone knows this waterfall is there. (My powers of deduction are great are they not?) I desire to stand on that bridge, but I cannot find the way to get to it. I have done my research to no avail. I have been back to the falls twice more to explore the trails around it. One was a dead-end into a camping area. Another possible path came to an impasse when I couldn’t find a way to safely cross the river. One was excessively steep for me to travel with a bum knee. I have looked at every angle. I even used binoculars to take a closer look at the bridge thinking it might be the one at Duke’s Creek Falls. (It’s not.)
All of this hunting has only made my hunger to find the trail grow. I plan times to get away to go look some more. I sit on my computer and look up maps of the wilderness. I am gradually becoming consumed by this desire to find the path that leads to the bridge. It is not a safe obsession. Going alone into this area is not something I am completely comfortable with. Hiking with my keys and phone in hand is familiar to me. However, signal is spotty at best in this area. If I were to have trouble of some kind, I couldn’t call out. (But hey, I could get a great picture of the bear before it ate me…still a better way to die that cancer…just sayin’) This limits my ability to find what I am looking for to waiting for someone to go with me. This does not sit well with my stubborn…I mean tenacious…streak, which also happens to be very impatient. Drat that prayer for patience that I prayed years ago!
In my frustration to solve this secret, God spoke to me as he so often does in the woods. “I am a mystery.” Well there you go. God is a mystery. You can catch a glimpse, but in order to find him you have to search him out. He leaves you clues, but you have to piece them together yourself, looking in every place at every angle. We are so microwave in our culture that anything that takes time is viewed with distain. However, a good mystery has suspense, a great story, lots of well-placed but unexpected clues (such as a bridge in the wilderness…hmmm think about that one a minute), and a resolution at the end. He is both author and solution. The beginning and the end. We are the characters in the story, seeking to find. You have at one time or another in your life caught a glimpse of him. I know this because the hunger to know and be known is within every one of us. He reveals himself in a multitude of ways. Our choice is to ignore it or to search him out. He leaves clues to who he is and where he can be found. Tidbits that heighten the suspense of knowing more, because just when you think you know all about him, the drops another clue that you have never even considered. It is like hide and seek…or maybe seek and find. A lifelong scavenger hunt that has a most glorious solution.
To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. Col. 1:27