Have you ever asked God, Why?

Trusting God means always being content to live with no more than God in his wisdom wants to reveal, when he wants to reveal it.

We’re currently looking at how God both reveals and hides. In this post we see how to respond when God hides things, when there are mysteries he does not explain, when his ways are inscrutable (Rom. 11:33).

For there is much that God does not tell us. Proverbs 25:2 says, “It is the glory of God to conceal things.” Deuteronomy 29:29 says, “The secret things belong to the LORD our God.”

Life is full of mysteries and secrets. We all have questions. We all are curious. One of the biggest words in English is “why.” We want to know the future.

Unbearable knowledge

God knows there is much that we do not need to know, much that would actually be harmful for us to know. We are not God. Even if we had the capacity to know all, we could not bear it.

Jesus said, “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now” (John 16:12).

Although the knowledge God reveals and wants us to have is good and helpful, other knowledge can be a great burden. Solomon himself discovered that in some ways “he who increases knowledge increases sorrow” (Ecclesiastes 1:18).

The apostle Paul said, “I want you to be wise as to what is good and innocent as to what is evil” (Romans 16:19).

It was the desire to gain knowledge independently of God that caused Adam and Eve to stumble. When Satan tempted Eve to eat the forbidden fruit, he said,

“You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. (Genesis 3:4–6)

It was the desire to know the future that led King Saul to the fortune teller (1 Samuel 28).

The desire for wisdom and knowledge is good (Proverbs 1:1–4; 2:1–11), but the desire to get them in a way that involved disobedience, excluded God, and trusted Satan was not good.

Trust fills the gap

God created us to be in his image, but not to know all things. Rather, he created us to trust him in all things.

Thank God for limited knowledge. Partial ignorance is a gift to us, but only because God rules our lives and world. If God did not exist, ignorance would never be good. But because of his loving providence over all and in all, we can trust him for what he hides from us.

As long as we know that in all things he is working for our good and he is in control, we can trust him and accept our limitations.

David understood this. He wrote,

“O LORD, my heart is not lifted up; my eyes are not raised too high; I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me. But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother; like a weaned child is my soul within me.” (Psalm 131:1–2)

To be human is to see only so far

Most tests that God ordains for us require that we not know some things. Our faith would not be tested if we knew when and how God would fulfill his promises.

Even Jesus was kept in the dark until the Father wanted him to know something. For example, Jesus did not know when his Second Coming would occur, and he accepted that (Mark 13:32).

So limited knowledge is part of our human nature. God limits our knowledge because he wants us to rely on him, not on ourselves. We have to accept that, and we have to let limited knowledge lead us always to depend on the one with unlimited, complete knowledge (1 John 3:20).

God wants us to pray for knowledge and wisdom (James 1:5) and trust him for what he chooses to reveal. Don’t get frustrated if you seek him and he keeps secrets or makes you wait for understanding.

God’s ways and our ways

God’s ways: He knows all things but reveals only what is good for us.

Our ways: We want to know all things. We do not want to live by faith and trust in God. Instead we want God to explain himself and justify his ways. We do not want to wait for God’s perfect time to reveal his wisdom and knowledge. We can be too curious.