I’m grateful for what I don’t know. God in His goodness keeps all knowledge to Himself. Even after Adam and Eve ate of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, we still are blessed not to know some things. Jesus recognized that He could not tell the disciples all that He knew:

“I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now (John 16:12) and that it would be up to the Holy Spirit to fill us in.” (John 14:26)

Jesus, on the other hand, fully knew what awaited Him in the garden and on the following day of unjust trials ending in His being put to death in the most shameful and inhumane way on the Roman cross. His prayers for another way were genuine and evidence of His full knowledge of what God had asked of Him.

I’m grateful that God hides what He asks of me in a perfect way. As I re-witnessed Jesus walking the hardest part of His God-ordained journey, I became more grateful for mine. God did not tell me that I would say goodnight to my husband and then never hear his voice again in this life. God sustained me and prepared me all along the way, though I didn’t notice. I don’t think I could have noticed or would have wanted to notice. I think it would be harder to know what was waiting ahead. It was better for me that I just kept living each day focused on God and His love as much as possible and let the future be revealed.

After the fact, I can see that God was preparing me for what I would face. I have two friends who I trust greatly who told me back in 2010 that God showed them that I would face a difficult situation. Both of them were sickened by what they felt and didn’t want to tell me. Neither knew the other very well; but after I told them both, they became better friends and prayed for me. I don’t get too focused on things like that. I trusted their sincerity but kept my focus on loving and serving God, not on avoiding some tragedy. Besides their words could fit with the hard times I was experiencing right then. In fact, one of them had the word broken for me and when I fractured my tailbone on a mission trip (my first broken bone), I told her that I thought that her prayers were referring to that. Little did I know that their prayers for me would sustain and strengthen me for the greatest sadness of my life—living here without my husband.

God asks us to live in a fallen world, taking the blows this reality throws at us, and believing in His goodness and right plan for the universe. He doesn’t ask that we understand and be able to explain perfectly why things happen as they do. He does ask that we believe in His goodness in spite of what we can’t know. Jesus knew what would happen on Good Friday if God did not intervene. Jesus could handle the truth. Jesus is comfortable with not knowing and trusting that God knows the best time when it comes to His return. He told His disciples that only God knows the day and the time (Mark 13:32).

What I know is that the closer I get to God and the more I trust Him, the easier it is to live in the land of not knowing anything and be certain that He will see me through.