The Mysterious and the Good

"Clouds and darkness are round about Him.... Light is sown for the righteous...." Ps. 97:2a, 11a

"Course He isn't safe. But He is good." -C.S. Lewis

There are two things that we must never forget about God: His mysteriousness and His goodness. We are most forgetful of and frustrated by the former. We gladly seek the comforts of God only to find that resting in His secret place means dwelling in a shadow (Ps.91:1) and darkness (Ps. 18:11). God is light, and in Him dwells no darkness (I John 1:5), but darkness is where He dwells; not it in Him, but rather He in it. Thus, His ways are mysterious (Is. 55:8, 9; Rom. 11:33) and His light inaccessible (I Tim. 6:16). We often flounder at this: we would much rather have a God that we could easily categorize and thus easily predict. However, one of God's favorite past times is frustrating our assumptions, and He will continue to do so until we trust in His mystery.
God's goodness is more palatable than His mystery, but only after we water it down to the point of banality. We do acknowledge the light that He graciously sows for us, whether it be His word for guidance (Ps.119:105) or His Son for salvation (John 1:4); yet we do not seem to connect that we are given light because the world is dark, a darkness filled with terrors and terrified people. The light we are given is for our survival and the salvation of others. We are not on a sun-drenched vacation; we are pilgrims in an unholy land. God's goodness (which He freely gives because He is good) is not to be bottled up and horded, but broken and spilled out unto all. God is good, and good to us; but if we are to be like Him (I Peter 1:16), then we cannot keep that goodness, that light, to ourselves. Like our Father in Heaven has done for us, we too must spread the light as far as we can fling it.

-Jon Vowell