The Secret Things

What has God kept from you? He has not said no, and He has not explained. He has simply not said. Maybe it is the reason behind a phone call that changed everything. Maybe it is why the treatment worked for her and not for him, or why a good man went to prison for twelve years while a guilty one walked free.

When you read where today's verse sits, you find that it comes in the middle of people asking questions. The verses just before it describe a scene of ruin. The whole land has become "brimstone, and salt, and burning," and travellers passing through stop to ask the obvious thing: "Even all nations shall say, Wherefore hath the LORD done thus unto this land? what meaneth the heat of this great anger?" Somebody answers them. Their question gets a reason, and the reason runs for four verses, beginning with this: "Because they have forsaken the covenant of the LORD God of their fathers."

So the line between what is hidden and what is shown is drawn just after an answer has been given, and it is drawn with care. "The secret things belong unto the LORD our God." The Hebrew has no verb here, only a small word that ties each half to its owner, and it comes back in the second half: "those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law." What God has shown us is ours to keep, like family land handed down to the children. And it comes with a purpose attached at the end. It is given so that we can live by it.

The secret things are not called small, and you are not scolded for wanting to know them. The verse simply tells you whose they are. They are safe with "the LORD our God," the same God who has given you everything you need in order to walk with Him. The half that is yours has been handed to you for good. The other half you can leave with Him, and rest.

Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year one reading for day 317 is God Waits to Be Gracious (Isaiah 30:18).

All 365 readings in Daily Manna, Year Two