UNVEILED MYSTERIES

by John MacDuff

"You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand." John 13:7
Much is baffling and perplexing to us in God's present dealings. "What!" we are often ready to exclaim, "could not the cup have been less bitter; the trial less severe; the road less dreary?" "Hush your misgivings," says a gracious God; "arraign not the rectitude of My dispensations. You shall yet see all revealed and made bright in the mirror of eternity!"

 "What I am doing" -it is all my doing, my appointment. You have partial view of these dealings; they are seen by the eye of sense through a dim and distorted medium. You can see nothing but plans crossed, and gourds laid low, and "beautiful rods" broken. But I see the end from the beginning. "Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?"

 "Later you will understand!" Wait for the "later" revelation! An earthly father puzzles not the ear of infancy with hard sayings and involved problems. He waits for the manhood of being and then unfolds all. So it is with God! We are now in our infancy; children lisping in earthly infancy a knowledge of His ways. We shall learn the "deep things of God." in the manhood of eternity! Christ now often shows himself only "behind the lattice," a glimpse and He is gone! But the day is coming when we shall "see Him as He is!" when every dark hieroglyphic in the Roll of Providence will be interpreted and expounded! It is unfair to criticize the half finished picture; to censure or condemn the half developed plan. God's plans are here in embryo. "We see," says Rutherford, "the broken links in the chain of His providence. Let the Molder work his own clay in whatever frame He pleases." But a flood of light will break upon us from the sapphire throne; "In your light, O God! we shall see light." The "need be," muffled as a secret now, will be confided to us then, and become luminous with love.

 Perhaps we may not have to wait until eternity for the realization of this promise. We may experience its fulfillment here. We not infrequently find, even in this present world, mysterious dispensations issuing in unlooked for blessings. Jacob would never have seen Joseph had he not parted with Benjamin. Often would the believer never would have seen the true Joseph had he not been called on to part with his best beloved! His language at the time is that of the patriarch "I am indeed bereaved!" "All these things are against me!" But the things he imagined to be so adverse, have proved the means of leading him to see the heavenly king "in His beauty" before he dies. Much is sent to "humble us and to prove us." It may not do us good now, but it is promised to do so "at our latter end."

 I shall not dictate to my God what His way should be. The patient does not dictate to the physician. He does not reject and refuse the prescription because it is nauseous; he knows it is for his good, and takes it on trust. It is for faith to repose in whatever God appoints. Let me not wrong His love or dishonor His faithfulness by supposing that there is one needless or redundant drop in the cup which His loving wisdom has mingled. "Now we know in part, but THEN shall we know even as also we are known!"

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