Monday Mysteries (06/17/2025)

I love a good mystery. It started when I was younger; I read every Nancy Drew novel published. I read the Sherlock Holmes mysteries and Agatha Christie novels. And every Monday, I tune into hours of mysteries at the museum, mysteries at the church, mysteries at the castle, and mysteries of the unknown. It’s my “mystery day.”  The LORD gave me an inquisitive mind capable of logic and so I use it.

It’s a mystery to my patient husband as to why I am so hooked on these shows, but he patiently humors me and gets lost in his train workshop or watches a movie on another television. Sometimes he gets drawn into the shows as he’s passing through. Truth is, he loves a good mystery, too.

Last evening, I deviated from my usual Monday mystery show because it was a show I’d already seen (not much mystery when I already know the answer). So, my husband and I decided to watch a movie. We ended up selecting the movie “The Shack.” And early on, we realized we were in the middle of a mystery – a man’s immersion into the mystery of God – Father, Son, and Spirit. It is a movie worth watching.

The movie made me step back and consider my own relationship with the LORD and my trust in the LORD. I recall a scene when the main character asked that Father, Son, and Spirit (or in the movie, Papa, Jesus, and Sarayu) remain with him and they responded, “I always have,” “I am”, and “I will be.” Several scenes made me look at my own level of trust in the LORD and my own judgments of others and of the LORD. As I said, it was a movie that made me dig into the mystery that is our LORD and my own curiosity, my own logic, and my own assimilation of glimpses of the LORD in my life.

Ironically, or maybe not so much, it came at a time when I really needed it. How was that? Well, as old as I am, that’s one of the mysteries of life with the LORD I haven’t quite figured out – How the LORD gives me a choice with just what I need at the moment as the prize. After the movie, my husband and I had a long chat about it. It was a great mystery Monday.

Our spiritual journeys of faith, buoyed by the hope in the LORD and the LORD’s trustworthiness, and fueled by love from the LORD and for the LORD and one another will take us to new places and lead us into encounters with new people. But we go forward believing in the LORD and the LORD’s power and presence in our lives while at the same time recognizing the LORD’s gift to the world of free will. And how it works out, we don’t always understand. The question is, will we still believe when we don’t know the answer? Will we still hope when the promise has not yet been fulfilled, will we still love even when we are hurt by the hateful words and actions of others?  

How the LORD is who the LORD is is a mystery to us that we will not be able to totally open this side of the sod. But the faith in the LORD’s power and presence, manifestations of the LORD’s love for us, that is not mystery, that is faith, that should be sure to us. We cannot totally understand now because it is beyond our limited and human comprehension. But our Savior came so that we might have life and have it in abundance with our LORD. It is there that we will look upon the face of our LORD and understand wholly and deeply.

As we go forth, continuing our journeys of faith, let us be open to the LORD’s slow unwrapping and revealing of life’s mysteries and assured that the LORD always has been with us, is with us, and always will be with us.

Until tomorrow, let us all love well.