Great is the Mystery

Two blogs and a letter occasion this post.

I was referred to the first blog several months ago, the second blog several days ago.  Both recount what we would call “tragedies” from an earthly point of view.  Both are full of raw emotion.  Both also testify to the sovereignty of God and His power to sustain His own even in great grief. 

I cannot help but wonder what the response of those who do not love the Lord must be when they read such things.  How can one confess Though He cause great grief, yet will He have compassion according to His abundant loving-kindness? (Lamentations 3:32)


Without controversy, great is the mystery of godliness.
(I Timothy 3:16)

The letter came from Lars and Elisabeth (Elliot) Gren.  I wrote Elisabeth some time ago to thank her for the godly influence that her testimony and her many books have had in my life.  She is old now, too old even to write herself (her husband wrote me instead), yet still her life and her words testify to the great mystery that is godliness.

Then there’s me.  Sarah, plain and not so tall.  The events that I blog or write about in my devotionals are things seemingly trite and mundane.  Snow.  Our four year-old’s memory verse.  The loss of a first tooth.

But as these thoughts run through my mind, another thought occurs to me.  Though my story is not characterized by a great tragedy, though I cannot recount missionary life in the jungle, the experiences of the ordinary life that I live are ones to which many can relate.  I think of Corrie Ten Boom’s reply to Elisabeth Elliot when she lamented the fact that she always told the same story.  “That’s the story God gave you,” Corrie replied.  “You tell that one.”  Essentially, I realize, my story is the same story: I am a sinner saved by the grace of the sovereign God.

It’s a story whose expected end is another mystery:

Behold, I show you a mystery;

We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed,

In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump:

For the trumpet shall sound,
and the dead shall be raised incorruptible,

And we shall be changed…

(I Corinthians 15:51-52)

And so, all the days of my appointed time will I wait, ‘til my change come.
(Job 14:14).

That’s my story, too.
I’ll tell that one.