Sometime We Shall Understand by F. M. W.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Dec 21, 1911

Sometime We Shall Understand

By F. M. W.

LIFE presents many mysterious problems. We look out into the great universe of God, and how many things there are that we can not fathom nor understand. The heavens above and the depths beneath are beyond our comprehension. The Scriptures of truth contain mysteries. The lives of others are as closed books to our study, and even our own experiences have dark and unexplained chapters. We can not understand why certain things have befallen us, why we have been called upon to pass through certain trials, why certain influences have shaped and molded our experiences. We have been bereft of friends; we have suffered sickness; property has been swept away; those we loved and trusted have apparently turned

against us; our fellows have counted our best efforts for naught, misjudged our motives; and it has seemed at times, as it did to Jacob of old, that our experiences were against us.

To the trusting child of God there is comfort in the thought that the darkness will sometime give place to the light; that the crooked places will be made straight and the dark places plain. Sometime, if not in this world then in the world to come, we shall have the privilege of viewing questions from the standpoint of heaven’s exalted plane. We shall see, in so far as finite can see through infinite eyes, as God sees. We shall measure with the great measuring rule of divine wisdom.

The apostle Paul refers to this time and to this experience in the thirteenth chapter of First Corinthians when he says: “For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away. . . . For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as I am known.”

This more perfect knowledge is to be a part of the glorious heritage of the children of God in the ages to come. How blessed it will be to see with undimmed eyes! How sweet to carry about with us the consciousness that our associates are in sympathy with our purposes and understand our motives! We shall not see through a veil, dimly, but face to face. We shall know even as we are known. Some of the hard, trying experiences through which we have been called upon to pass will then be explained by our own blessed Master.

“Christ will lead his redeemed ones beside the river of life, and will explain to them all that perplexed them in this world. The mysteries of grace will unfold before them. Where their finite minds discerned only confusion and broken purposes, they will see the most perfect and beautiful harmony.”

In view of this experience which awaits us, let us be patient. We are now in God’s great training-school. By the trials and difficulties that we meet he is endeavoring to fit us for a place in his coming kingdom. The trials are his workmen. By them our rough characters are chiseled and fashioned and molded after the divine similitude. The rough, sharp corners are taken off, and we are fitted to become beautiful stones in the temple of our God.

By faith we may know, as did the apostle Paul, that “all things work together for good to them that love God.” Again and again human reasoning will deny the truth of this statement as applied to our personal experience; but it is for us through God’s grace to permit faith to cast down reasoning, and to build our hopes, not upon the unstable foundation of our own philosophy, but upon the sure word and promises of God. We may not understand how divine omnipotence can shape the experiences of life so that they will work out our eternal good, but our great Father of wisdom and love has pledged his word that this shall be done for us, as far as we will patiently submit our cases into his hands.

Then let us not repine and mourn and complain. Let us be patient through the purifying process, trusting that in the glorious future we shall understand all of life’s mysteries, and know why God has led us over the road we have traveled and brought us through the experiences which have befallen us.

In the following song the poet has beautifully expressed our thought and the hope that should comfort our hearts throughout life’s journey:—

“The desert way He sometimes leads us, The simple manna that he feeds us, The humble work for which he needs us, We may not always understand; But while for Canaan gardens yearning, God’s lessons patiently we’re learning; The fiery pillar still is burning: He leads, he leads, We need not understand.

“The bondage which we’ve left, repenting, The foe that follows unrelenting, The deep, wide sea our flight preventing, We need not always understand; But we’ve a Father wise as loving, Let faith his promises be proving; Stand still and see the waters moving: He rules, he rules, We need not understand.

“Why to the bitter fountains guided, When ’twas for crystal springs we chided, Nor knew we prayed with heart divided, We may not always understand; But by the lonely pool of Marah, The living water seemeth dearer, And Christ, the riven Rock, is nearer: Life flows, life flows, We need not understand.

“And when we reach the Jordan River, Where day’s last shadows faintly quiver, O may the arms of the Life-giver Bear safely to the promised land! Till then we trust the One who knoweth, No storm forbidden ever bloweth, No tear unnoticed ever floweth: He knows, he knows, Sometime we’ll understand.”

F. M. W.