Thursday, September 16, 2010

God Conceals So We Can Discover

Proverbs 25:2- It is the glory of God to conceal a matter, but the glory of kings is to search out a matter.

Can you imagine if we knew everything there is to know about God, creation, and His plans for our life the moment we became saved? The Christian life would be so boring! There'd be nothing new to discover, no revelation or 'ah ha!' moment, and certainly no need to read the Bible. Sometimes I think I'd like to know everything, but then I would just be like "what's next?" and there wouldn't be a "next".

I picture God like a parent who has set up a treasure hunt or an Easter egg hunt for their child. In these little eggs are great treasure, the "ah ha" moments, the revelations. New discoveries about God are in each egg. The parent lets their child wander around looking for the eggs by themselves for a while. The parent an see where they've hidden the eggs, but the child can't. So after a while the child becomes frustrated and asks for help. The parent then gently guides the child to the egg and the process may then be repeated. Sometimes the parent can only reveal one egg at a time before the child tries to do it on their own again, whereas other times the parent can reveal several eggs before the child goes off on their own.

This isn't a perfect analogy, but I think this is a good picture of God who, like the parent, wants to guide His chilren to these spiritual truths, these treasures. And sometimes we, like the child, try to insist on doing it our own way, but when we ask God for help we have much greater success.

I, for one, am so greatful that we have a God who does not allow Himself to be revealed all at once. I'm glad that I get to take this journey of discovery throughout my Christian life. It is God's job to hide certain matters from us like treasures on an Easter egg hunt and it is our job, with His guidance and at His time, to discover these matters, this treasure. It is like a life-long treasure hunt! What would happen to our lives spiritually if we looked at every moment we spent in God's Word as a treasure hunt?

1 comment:

  1. i want to let you know that i greatly appreciate your viewpoint. i like this analogy. a lot.

    ReplyDelete