I have several college degrees and a vast vocabulary, but there are more things I don’t understand than what I can comprehend. If you watched me advise a student regarding a possible dissertation research topic, you might find my methods incomprehensible, given my 25 years of experience. When I watch someone at work whose knowledge and experience is higher than mine, their methods are mysterious to me. When do you notice mysterious methods, orchestrated by someone whose capabilities are higher than yours?
My Mysterious Mind
I recently attended my first emeriti banquet since my retirement last year. My retirement officially began after 24 years of employment as faculty, but unofficially my relationship with the university began 40 years ago when I taught my first psychology course as an adjunct faculty member. In 1985, I was working full-time as a psychotherapist and decided to find part-time work teaching college. I contacted the psychology department head and a few months later, on a Friday, he called me. Classes started the following Monday, and he needed someone to teach a section of “Introduction to Psychology.” I agreed to jump in on such short notice; thus began my relationship with that department head and with the university.
That first class led to many others, even to five years working full-time as a “lecturer.” It was during that season of my teaching that I wrote my first inspirational series of messages, which I compiled into a small publication entitled “Minute Motivators.” I sold the little book to students to cover the cost of production. Thirty years later I republished these short messages within my Substack series “Adventures in Reflection.”
To my surprise and joy, that psychology department head who first hired me at the university was at the emeriti banquet. To my even greater shock and delight, he told me he had recently found my “little book” in his things. Deeply moved that he kept my humble publication all those years, I thanked him. His response was, “You gave it to me.” We concluded our chat with my thanking him for giving me my first job at the university.
As I was walking to the parking lot after the banquet I heard a young male voice shout, “Dr. Mac?!” Turning towards the sound, I saw one of my students from educational psychology, a course I taught during my last in-person semester before retiring. We exchanged a few energized remarks, including him telling me he had switched his major to psychology. I presume that happened, at least in part, because he enjoyed my class.
Later that evening, as I pondered the mysterious encounters during the emeriti banquet, I was amazed that forty years of my relationship with that university had been captured by two bookend encounters in one evening. I talked with the person who first hired me and one of my last students before retiring. The first person had saved my “little book” and told me so. The latter person announced a change in major prompted by my teaching. Mysterious forces beyond my comprehension had arranged my path to cross with theirs, delivering a message to me. I got the message. I matter to these two people, but more importantly, I matter to the one preparing my life behind the scenes.
Message of Mystery Acres
My husband and I have six grandchildren from 6 months to 8 years old. The oldest three are grandsons, currently the 8-year-old and two 5-year-olds. These three, plus a 15-month-old younger brother, will simultaneously be staying with us for what we are calling “Grandson Camp.” During part of their visit, we will all be staying overnight at Mystery Acres.
Preparing for grandson camp requires extensive behind the scenes work, especially bringing four little boys into the woods and providing for their eating and sleeping arrangements. Our “private campground” is off-grid; all electricity is produced on-site by small solar systems and gas-powered generators. There are sufficient indoor spaces to provide sheltered places to sleep but there is much to do to get those areas ready.
One grandson is easily freaked out by bugs, thus, I will be carefully vacuuming to decrease the presence of dead bugs on the cabin floor. For the toddler, who gets into everything, I am devising ways to prevent him from opening cabinet doors and moving anything potentially dangerous onto higher shelves just in case he’s more clever than I anticipated. We have a refrigerator in the motorhome, but it isn’t on unless we are there and takes several hours to cool down. My husband is devising a way to keep it going for longer stretches of time between our visits so it can be cold upon our arrival with the grandsons.
During previous visits we slept in the motorhome with three of the four boys, but we want to sleep in the cabin this time so there’s room for the toddler. All the boys want to sleep in the one bed in the motorhome with me; there simply isn’t enough room as they have grown older, and I don’t want to fall out of bed. Sure, the “dining area” converts to a small bed and the couch can be shifted to double its sleeping space, but where is the pack-n-play going to fit? And what about the dogs who also insist on sleeping next to me? Our plan is to use the motor home for dining and the cabin for sleeping, but that requires adding sleeping areas to the current two-person capacity in the cabin.
When the boys arrive with us at Mystery Acres the advance preparations will already have been completed. They won’t realize all that has happened to get ready for their stay. The cabin will have sleeping areas ready for two adults, three children, and one toddler. The refrigerator in the motorhome will be cold and ready to hold perishable food. The floors will have recently been cleared of anything that resembles a dead bug. As the grandchildren, their “job” is just to be children and enjoy what has been made ready for them. For my husband and I, their grandparents, we have lovingly prepared for our grandchildren.
The message of Mystery Acres is about behind the scenes preparations completed for those we love. It also speaks of the mysterious methods to prepare for us. Like our grandsons who will arrive at the forest unable to see the preparations completed by their grandparents, we, too, arrive in each day with someone higher having prepared places for us.
Ancient Mystery’s Voice
“God said, ‘My ways are higher than your ways.’” (See Isaiah 55:9)
A peculiar song entitled “Joy in the Morning” has been playing on the Christian Contemporary radio stations recently. The first verse begins with, “everything happens for a reason, but you don’t know what you don’t know.” The song focuses on “joy in the morning” after a time of difficulty.
I love the concept of “everything happens for a reason” as well as “joy comes in the morning” after a time of weeping, however, our little human minds don’t really comprehend the mysterious methods at work. Furthermore, “all things work together for good” (see Romans 8: 28) but our version of “good” is probably not the same as the definition of the One orchestrating the behind-the-scenes details.
Can a child understand all that is being done to support them? Do they recognize the shelter, meals, insurance, and sacrifices of their caretakers? If they do see these things, could they possibly grasp the depth and complexity of what is required to protect and raise them? Of course not. The thoughts of those caring for them are higher than a child’s thoughts. The methods to provide for them are mysterious to the simple minds of children.
When challenged by a child about their methods, a parent might say, “one day, when you have children of your own, you will understand.” The parent, seeing the gap between what a child and a grown-up can understand, just explains the child’s questioning by pointing to the developmental difference between them.
God does something similar as recorded by Isaiah in the 9th verse of the 55th chapter. He begins by pointing out the difference between his thoughts and ways and those of people. Next, he uses a metaphor of heavens and the earth and compares that to how His ways and thoughts are “higher” than the ways of humans. One phrase states: “My ways are higher than your ways.” A parent might say something like, “if you were in my shoes, which are bigger than your child-size shoes, you would see things differently.”
Everything happens for a reason, but we don’t know what we don’t know, and we wouldn’t be able to comprehend it all if we did know. For the One who created us, we are the children, not the parent. His ways are higher than our ways. His thoughts are more complicated than our thoughts. The mysterious methods orchestrating the events of our lives are beyond our understanding. The trouble really lies in whether or not we believe those methods are done in love for us.
Ancient Mystery’s Voice speaks from a higher place of comprehension than the plane of human understanding. Up there, in the mysterious realm of the Creator, what is happening down here makes sense. To us, the children, most of what happens around us is too complicated for us. Can we trust the parental love of the One who is preparing our lives behind the scenes?
Living in Mystery
Living with mysterious methods orchestrated at a higher level than our understanding requires accepting that we don’t know what we don’t know. There are higher forces at work in each of our lives, forces that weave our lives together in ways beyond our understanding. It is our curious, human nature to demand answers to questions of “why?” but some of those answers lie far above our capacity to process them.
This limitation is especially difficult to accept when circumstances in our lives don’t make sense AND they are painful. Why did I lose my job? How could this accident have taken someone so young? Why would God allow cancer to ravage the body of someone I love? Why did lightning strike my house and cause it to burn to the ground? If God is good, how can these terrible things be from Him and be good? Such tragedies simply don’t make sense.
To us. In our little minds we cannot comprehend the higher, mysterious methods of the One who weaves together the tapestries of our lives. That includes the wonderful and miraculous as well as the dark and heart-breaking. We don’t know what we don’t know about how the bright and terrible can both work together for good. Like two-year-olds we can endlessly ask “why?” but the answers are probably beyond what our tiny brains can process.
Fortunately, most days are filled with ordinary happenings with a few extraordinary surprises sprinkled here and there. Scattered across the hundreds of such days are the horrible times, when life punches us in the gut or hits us so hard we can barely breathe. Consider the life of a child as a parent provides for them. Most days are safe and wonderful, but, at times, there are required shots at the doctor, or a tooth that needs to be treated by a dentist, or a favorite toy that goes missing. Such painful days do not negate the overarching love and providence of the parents. Hard experiences are woven into the life of a child even by the most incredible of human parents. Answers to questions of “why?” are beyond the child’s understanding.
Instead of concluding that the parents are horrible because life isn’t pain-free, a child will relax and enjoy what has been prepared for them, protesting during the painful times but not crushed by them. Life is still good. The parents are still loving. The higher reasons for the mysterious methods of the parents are just more than a child can understand.
And more than that, little children will delight in the simplest of joys prepared for them. Wrapping paper and a box brings great happiness. Laughter can erupt from feet tickled by grass or a dog trying to steal a lick of available skin. Seeing a grandparent cues a happy dance. Discomfort from immunizations is quickly forgotten. Joy is easier and more automatic before the child develops the capacity to demand explanations.
Mysterious methods, orchestrated at a level higher than our child-like understanding invite each of us to choose. It’s okay to ask “why?” but if answers don’t come, we can either get stuck demanding explanations or we can embrace the wonder of what is prepared beyond our comprehension. Grandparents prepare for joy-filled time for their grandchildren. Parents prepare for the well-being of their children. The Lord of All Mystery uses higher methods to design life for all of us. I cannot comprehend those higher ways, but I can accept they are ways of love.
Connecting with Mystery
Dear Lord of All Mystery, I admit wanting answers beyond what I can comprehend. This life includes some horrors too terrible for me to accept. It is also filled with wonders and mysteries more magnificent than I can understand. Help me to accept that there are many times I don’t know what I don’t know, relaxing with a child-life faith in what has been lovingly prepared for me and for those I love. Thank You for Your higher ways because a God I can completely understand isn’t one worthy of my praise. Amen.
Notes from Dr. Mac
If you want to do your own investigation of any of the scriptures I use, I suggest you go to Bible Gateway. This free online version of the Bible allows a search of words or phrases in various translations. I encourage you to read the entire 55th chapter of the book of Isaiah.
Do you want more from my writing? I have three years of previous posts, which you can find at my ARCHIVE.
My very first post, from May 8, 2022, is Turn the Page. I have topically organized some of my previous work in the My Books section. Plus Mystery’s Voice is on Spotify.
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