When my kids were little, they were curious about everything. How does the car engine work? Why is thunder so loud? How tall will I get? Why…? I often didn’t know the answer to their questions and had to do some research in order to respond. Sometimes, my answer was, “Let’s look at a book on that topic” or one time, I gave my son a model car engine for him to build.
We live in a day when answers are just a click away. We merely have to ask our phone a question and we receive a ready response. In some ways, this makes us think there is an answer to every question. That we can know everything.
But the Bible teaches otherwise.
In Ecclesiastes 3, the Preacher makes observations about the world. He notes that there are seasons in life, including a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to harvest what is planted, a time to weep and a time to laugh. Then he writes:
“I have seen the business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with. He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. I perceived that there is nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live; also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil—this is God’s gift to man. I perceived that whatever God does endures forever; nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it. God has done it, so that people fear before him. That which is, already has been; that which is to be, already has been; and God seeks what has been driven away” (Ecc. 3:10-15).
God has given us tasks to do in life and they happen in seasons and times that he determines. Whatever the season we are in, there is beauty found there. He then tells that God has placed eternity into man’s heart. We know deep down of God’s existence and his work in this world. We know deep down that we are created beings, dependent upon our Creator. But, we don’t know everything. “…he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end” (v.11). We are finite beings. We do not know the end from the beginning. We don’t know the answer to all the questions. We don’t know how to do all the things. We don’t know why things happen as they do. We are not God.
What do we do with that? As people who want all the answers—who want to ask Siri why we continue to struggle or when our trial will end or how to navigate a difficult decision—the Preacher is telling us to be okay with the fact that we don’t know. To trust that God knows. To rest in the sovereignty of God. There are things he has revealed to us and the rest only he alone knows: “The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law” (Deut. 29:29). He is the Alpha and the Omega (Rev. 1:8). He is before all things and he holds all things together (Col. 1:17). While we cannot know all things, we were created by an infinite God who does. He not only knows, he determines what is to come and ensures it comes to pass. As his creatures, we are called to fear him, delight in him, and keep our gaze fixed on him (vv.14-15). As we do, we find joy and contentment in what God provides, in the season he provides it (vv.12-13).
Matthew Henry commented on this passage: “Though we see not the complete beauty of Providence, yet we shall see it, and a glorious sight it will be, when the mystery of God shall be finished. Then every thing shall appear to have been done in the most proper time and it will be the wonder of eternity…We must wait with patience for the full discovery of that which to us seems intricate and perplexed, acknowledging that we cannot find out the work that God makes from the beginning to the end, and therefore must judge nothing before the time. We are to believe that God has made all beautiful. Every thing is done well, as in creation, so in providence, and we shall see it when the end comes, but till then we are incompetent judges of it. While the picture is in drawing, and the house in building, we see not the beauty of either; but when the artist has put his last hand to them, and given them their finishing strokes, then all appears very good. We see but the middle of God’s works, not from the beginning of them (then we should see how admirably the plan was laid in the divine counsels), nor to the end of them, which crowns the action (then we should see the product to be glorious), but we must wait till the veil be rent, and not arraign God’s proceedings nor pretend to pass judgment on them. Secret things belong not to us.”
I am just like my children in that I long to know all the answers. I don’t like to wait or live in the unknown. I want to know everything that is going to happen before it does. But God is a good Father and I know him. I know that he makes all things beautiful—even the messy, frayed fabric of my life. I can’t judge it as I see it now. I must wait for its completion when I will stand in wonder and awe at all God has done.
I don’t have the all the answers. But I trust the One who does.
Photo by Daiga Ellaby on Unsplash
