secret image

 

Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know. – Jeremiah 33:3 (NIV)

Call to me and I will answer you, and will tell you great and hidden things that you have not known. – Jeremiah 33:3 (ESV)

Call to Me and I will answer you, and tell you [and even show you] great and mighty things, [things which have been confined and hidden], which you do not know and understand and cannot distinguish. – Jeremiah 33:3 (AMP)

I love the verses above. God holds secrets. Secret knowledge, information, wisdom, truth. The verses above remind me that this information is not something that will forever be kept hidden. God says if we call to Him, He will answer and tell us “great and unsearchable things, hidden things, which we have not known.”

What could that be? Secrets of the universe? There are so many! How God simply spoke words and a whole universe and world full of creatures and living things came into being? The “why” of so many unexplained things (difficulties, illnesses, senseless deaths, challenges, the order of things, etc.) So many mysteries of life, the universe, the fall, the Trinity, etc.?

God doesn’t “owe” us an explanation… yet, He offers to tell us some “great and mighty things”.

In a Beth Moore Bible study years ago, I recall her saying that God keeps these pearls of wisdom in His hands; all we have to do is ask, and He opens His hands and offers them to us. But we do have to ask; they aren’t going to magically appear around us in a shower of white.

Here’s a secret. Lately, I’ve been feeling as dry as a thorny, spiny, dead desert. I’ve been feeling like a forlorn piece of tumbleweed, blown by certain winds of this life, drifting here and there, and landing in desolate places.

But that’s how it can be with depression; you don’t feel like doing much of anything and it feels like even God is far away, and any words of scripture of hope and life or others’ words of encouragement can seem empty. That’s how it can be; that’s how it is. Even beautiful things of the world look drab and dreary. You don’t know what’s ahead and it’s awfully scary. I’ve not been prone to anxiety, but over the past couple of months, I can feel it on occasion rising up and it feels like my lungs could cave in… that’s how it can be. I feel that I’m being propelled into an even harder place, a place of greater darkness requiring greater faith, which I feel I do not have, nor do I want to have and wonder what to do.

Secrets are hard. We all have them; goodness knows, I do, and I hope one day I can write freely about the things that are clouding me that feel like a smoke of darkness. I feel as if a cloud of ash is encroaching toward me, and I will not be able to breathe.

I may have hard things – things which cause pain and anguish and hardship in my life, my heart, my mind… and, it is wearying.  I hope one day to write about these things, to emerge from in a hopeful way, the way a butterfly emerges from its dark cocoon, the way the sun emerges from dark storm clouds.

But God has some good secrets He keeps, and He isn’t hoarding the pearls of wisdom to Himself. He offers to give them to us, if only we ask.  Even in the midst of gray, I know this is light, this is hope, this is what will break through eventually; this is life.

Not only are there beautiful, secret things that we do not know, there is also is a secret, safe place:

He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High
Shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. – Psalm 91:1

Someone once told me that Psalm 91 is the “soldier’s psalm”. She said soldiers in battle would remember and recite this.

We are also fighting battles; internal and external ones. The enemy is firing darts and taking aim and trying to destroy us. The enemy wants to turn our eyes away from hope, from light, from God. The enemy wants us to believe lies.

Psalm 91 isn’t just about a soldier in battle in war, but applies to us, too.

Here is the entirety of Psalm 91:

Safety of Abiding in the Presence of God

91  He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High
Shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.

I will say of the Lord, “He is my refuge and my fortress;
My God, in Him I will trust.”

Surely He shall deliver you from the snare of the fowler
And from the perilous pestilence.

He shall cover you with His feathers,
And under His wings you shall take refuge;
His truth shall be your shield and buckler.

You shall not be afraid of the terror by night,
Nor of the arrow that flies by day,

Nor of the pestilence that walks in darkness,
Nor of the destruction that lays waste at noonday.

A thousand may fall at your side,
And ten thousand at your right hand;
But it shall not come near you.

Only with your eyes shall you look,
And see the reward of the wicked.

Because you have made the Lordwho is my refuge,
Even the Most High, your dwelling place,

10 No evil shall befall you,
Nor shall any plague come near your dwelling;

11 For He shall give His angels charge over you,
To keep you in all your ways.

12 In their hands they shall bear you up,
Lest you dash your foot against a stone.

13 You shall tread upon the lion and the cobra,
The young lion and the serpent you shall trample underfoot.

14 “Because he has set his love upon Me, therefore I will deliver him;
I will set him on high, because he has known My name.

15 He shall call upon Me, and I will answer him;
will be with him in trouble;
I will deliver him and honor him.

16 Withlong life I will satisfy him,
And show him My salvation.”   

Maybe, like me, you are dreaming about good kinds of secrets. Maybe like me, you are holding onto the thread of hope of God’s light, safety, provision, and that He has great and unsearchable secrets today and tomorrow and beyond.

 

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(Linking with Five Minute Friday for this week’s prompt “Secret”)

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