Walking in the Dark
Why does God withhold key information from His friends?
Do you ever wish God would tell you beforehand all you are supposed to do?
I remember having this desire 10 years ago as a senior about to graduate college. The road ahead looked like a tree branching into a thousand offshoots. Where was I to go? What was I to do? Who was I to marry?
I wished then that God would send me a book from heaven: Daniel’s book. It would describe in every detail my life from that moment to my death. It would tell all I would do and achieve and become. The confusion of the immediate would be erased. The frustrations of the murky present would be gone. All I would have to do would be to follow the book: move back home, take this particular job position, fall in love with this girl…etc.
Easy as.
But God does not work this way and you don’t have to be an expert in theology to deduce this. All throughout the Bible we see God intentionally withhold key information from individuals, leaving them to walk in the dark. The greater context, the purpose, the details, the whys and the hows are all hidden from the human agents; information that would have done much to alleviate anguish and pain in the moment is purposefully obscured.
Abraham and Isaac is a key example of this intentional withholding. God could have told Abraham from the outset, “What we are going to do is a performative rehearsal; an acting out of something to come. Take your son, your only son to Mount Moriah and sacrifice him there, but don’t worry! In the nick of time I will provide a substitute. And you and your son will be fine.” But no, Abraham is entirely left in the dark and given as little information as possible. Go and sacrifice your son.
God did not need to learn anything about Abraham through this ordeal. It is not that He was unsure of the Abraham’s faith beforehand and needed to test him to discover the quality. God knows all things. Why then the unnecessary anxiety? Why hide key information from this special friend of God?
Joseph could have used some information from the start as well: “Your brothers are going to sell you into slavery, you will be falsely accused as a servant, and sent to prison. But stay with me. At the right time I will raise you up to interpret Pharaoh’s dream and thereby save multitudes from famine. You will also be the second in command.” But no, Joseph has very little to go on throughout his drawn out trial.
Or consider Job. Little did he know he was part of a heavenly contest. His mind and suffering could have been greatly eased if only he knew a little more about what God was doing and why He was doing it. “Job, you will be restored, and your story will be read by generations after you.” But he received none of that.
Our lives are no different. We have limited knowledge. We do not see the marvelous ends to which our dark paths are culminating. We have, no different from these saints of the past, promises given to us from God. And we must grab onto them and walk by faith in the dark, same as they.
This raises the question: Why doesn’t God do a grand reveal before the tests and trials arise? Why doesn’t He help his people out by letting us in on what He is really up to? Here are a few thoughts:
It would be very boring. To know every detail page after page; week after week would be as dull as re-watching football games from three years ago. Knowing the outcome beforehand takes the entire element of the exciting away from it. The thrill is part and parcel of not knowing how things are going to shake out in time; when you take away the uncertainty the utter fun of it all goes with it.
There would be no need for God. Dark roads are means by which God draws us to himself. If I was merely following Daniel’s book there would be no need to run and hide myself in the Almighty. I would be quite fine, the book says that I turn here and then this next thing will happen. There is no need for faith, or calling out to Him in the extremity of need, because there is no need! Undoubtedly God is so intentional in withholding His plan from us because He is so desirous that we seek Him.
There would be no wrestling. I ran across a quote from William Bridge months ago and I find myself thinking about it all the time. He likens God to a father of a young child:
“God seems to deal with us sometimes as a father doth by his little child; he holds a piece of gold in his hand, and saith the father, if you can get this out of my hand you shall have it; so the child strives and pulls, and works, and then the father opens his hand by degrees, first one finger, then another, and then another, and at last his whole hand; and the child thinks he hath got the money by his own strength and labor, whereas the father intended to give it him, but in that way.”
God could give his children the gold from the outset, but there is something about a wrestling match. There is something about this almost playful interaction with his children that he prizes so highly. There would be, however, none of this grappling and intensive contact if faith was not required.
There would be no deliverance. Knowledge of the facts beforehand would lessen the need, which in turn would lessen the meeting of that need. Gone would be that wonderous experience of God’s power in the extremity of your need. Gone would be the marvel of watching provision come in ways unforeseen, the thrill of receiving the delivery of the promise. The script takes that away, and you would be left with less reason to glorify Him as you do walking for years by faith and finally experiencing deliverance.
Walking Moriah
The Christian life could be described as long walk to Mount Moriah. Like Abraham we are each called to follow where God would lead us, through trials, losses, temptations, pain, and much uncertainty. This is by design. It is a feature not a bug. We are called to walk not by sight but by faith, in the dark, all the way through to the end. Why? Because coming back down the mountain is worth it.
For Abraham it meant to have his son unbound at his side, the promise of God delivered, a substitute given, a blessing received. To be tested and found faithful, to be assured that God was true the whole time—I can hardly imagine a greater feeling than that journey back home.
For us it means a full possession of what we now see only dimly, an inheritance imperishable and undefiled. A more glorious end than we could have arrived at by any other way.