The beauty of mystery

Series: Why Should I Encounter Persecuted Christians?

I need to encounter persecuted Christians because they help me to love mystery.

However we slice it, the Christian life involves living with mystery.
Many times the will of God is utterly incomprehensible to us. This is as it should be, since God's ways are so much higher than ours.
But it doesn't make it easier to live with. Living with mystery is hard.
I have noticed Christians all over the world try to turn mysteries into problems. This is a false route. Problems are issues "out there" that can be solved. How to put a man on the moon is a problem, not a mystery. A problem can always be solved given enough time, resources, and human ingenuity.
But why, for example, there is so much evil in the world is a mystery, not a problem.
Mysteries can never be solved. We can only come to terms with them as imperfectly as we can.
We can try to treat evil as a problem, by praying for healing or deliverance, or trying to introduce better education, or electing stronger moral leaders and so forth, but try as we might, it will not go away.
We can never solve the "problem" of evil. It is a mystery. We try to understand it as best we can, but we have to live with it.
Persecuted Christians are no different from Western Christians in many respects. They are Christians full of faults and misunderstandings and sins.
And in this matter of dealing with mystery, they exhibit the same foolish characteristics.

The mystery of revival
Mystery should make us silent, humble, careful. We should not rush to explain what cannot be explained.
But I remember on a visit to China meeting a famous house church leader. We were talking about revival. Revival is a mystery. Why does God bring it to some countries and not to others? We don't know.
This leader said he knew: "Oh, there is no mystery to revival. Revival is brought about by persecution. You pray for persecution, and you will get revival later on."
But this is not always true, and one has to make allowances for persecuted Christians, for though they may know the history of their own churches well, they are often unaware of the history of the church worldwide.
It is obvious that God has brought many revivals without persecution. The Great Awakenings of 18th century America and Britain, for example, were brought about largely as a result of the preaching of George Whitefield and John Wesley.
It is also obvious that there are places where persecution has not brought revival. One thinks of the whole of North Africa and the Middle East, which provided so many of our early church leaders. Now they contain the sandy ruins of churches - and a very dominant Islam.
Mysteries also should make us honest. We have to admit "we don't know" to God. All too often we beg for answers we simply could not handle.

Joy and grace
But if I look at the experiences rather than the explanations of the persecuted, I see that at the heart of mystery is not frustration, but joy and grace.
The same Chinese leader - so confident he knew the formula to revival - also shared a prison experience: "I had lost my church, my freedom, and I was starting to lose my health, and I cried to God, Why are you letting me go through this?"
He received no formal answer, but said: "I felt a light within me that chased away the darkness, and I received the companionship of Christ.
"I cannot explain it any more than that, though God knows I have tried. It never comes out right. But the mystery of God's will was the means I rested on the bosom of Christ."
Mysteries appear dark, like black holes on the outside, but as we enter them, we are in for a wonderful discovery. At their centre is not darkness, but light. This light is the light of Christ.
Paul described himself as a "steward of God's mysteries" (I Corinthians 4:1).
This mystery is the mystery of love. Those in love know they cannot explain it fully but rejoice to be experiencing it. So it is with Christ.
Don't be afraid of a mystery. It is dark on the outside, but full of light on the inside.

Other articles in this series:

• Achievement or Sacrifice?
• Stop Complaining
• Our Debt to Spiritual Ancestors
• Hope for Hard Times
• The Battle for Religious Freedom Never Ends
• Seeing the Bible through Persecuted Eyes
• Death Loses its Sting
• The Power of Song
• Simple Faith
• Key Ingredients in Hospitality
• Awakening to Struggle
• Obstacles to Instruments
• God is Not Safe
• Deliverance Comes Through Endurance
• Imperfect People Do God's Will