Personal Blogs

"Dieu a voulu se rendre connaissable à ceux qui le cherchent,

 et caché à ceux qui ne le cherchent pas.

 Il y a assez de lumière pour ceux qui ne désirent que de voir,

et assez d'obscurité pour ceux qui ont une disposition contraire."

Blaise Pascal

God Hides Things

When my children were young, we had a Surprise Day. We would strategically place gifts hidden throughout the house and watch their excitement hunting for the packages with their name on it.

After almost half a century of reading the Bible, one conclusion has gradually become impossible for me to ignore; God hides things. Not to deceive us. Not to keep us at a distance. But to draw us deeper.

I first noticed this in the way Scripture reveals the Messiah. The Old Testament is full of hints, patterns, symbols and promises that seem almost ordinary until the light of Christ falls upon them. Then passages read a hundred times suddenly come alive. What once appeared disconnected is seen to belong to a single, beautiful story.

It is one of the reasons I have become increasingly selective about devotional reading. I have worked through many daily devotionals over the years, but I often find myself disappointed when they become collections of anecdotes, motivational stories or personal reflections only loosely connected to the biblical text. Those things have their place, but increasingly I simply want someone to lead me straight into Scripture itself.

One devotional that has done exactly that is With All Your Mind and Heart by Seth Postell. Rather than treating each passage in isolation, Postell traces the Bible's unfolding narrative, showing how events, themes and images echo one another across the centuries. He helps readers notice what was always there, but so easily overlooked.

One example particularly stayed with me.

In his reflection for July 21, he drew attention to Peter's denial of Jesus in John 18. Peter denies his Lord three times while standing beside a charcoal fire (John 18:18). It is a painful moment that most readers remember well.

Yet after the resurrection, another charcoal fire appears.

When the disciples return from a night of fishing, Jesus is waiting for them on the shore. The only other charcoal fire mentioned in John's Gospel has been deliberately placed there (John 21:9). It quietly transports Peter back to the darkest night of his life.

Then comes another striking repetition.

Three times Jesus asks Peter, 'Do you love me?'

Three times Peter answers.

Three denials.

Three affirmations.

The failure is not ignored. It is redeemed.

That is the sort of detail I love discovering. It is not shouted from the page. It waits patiently for the attentive reader. Once seen, it becomes almost impossible to forget.

It reminds me of Proverbs 25:2:

'It is the glory of God to conceal a matter; to search out a matter is the glory of kings.'

That verse reaches far beyond Bible study.

Imagine God placing mathematics, music, gravity, DNA, galaxies and beauty into creation—not to frustrate humanity, but to invite exploration. Every scientific breakthrough, every mathematical discovery, every new glimpse through a telescope or microscope may simply be another gift waiting to be unwrapped.

Perhaps this is why so many mathematicians speak of discovering mathematics rather than inventing it. The patterns were already there. The relationships already existed. Human beings did not create the Fibonacci sequence or the value of π any more than Newton created gravity. They uncovered realities that had patiently waited for someone to notice.

The same is true of music. Long before anyone carved the first crude flute or stretched strings across a wooden frame, the mathematical relationships that make harmony possible already existed. Humanity discovered them because they had first been woven into creation.

Scientists, then, are not creating reality.

They are uncovering it.

Like archaeologists brushing dust from an ancient mosaic, they reveal what was always there.

For the Christian, this transforms discovery into something much richer than the accumulation of knowledge. It becomes an act of wonder. An act of humility. Even an act of worship.

Paradise itself will not be an end to discovery, but its true beginning. If God is infinite, then the exploration of His wisdom may never be exhausted. Throughout eternity there may always be another truth to uncover, another beauty to behold, another glimpse of the mind that spoke the universe into existence.

God hides things.

Not because He delights in keeping secrets. But because He delights in being found.

And every discovery, whether in Scripture or in creation, is another invitation to know Him a little more.

Scientists are not creating reality.

They're opening presents.

“He has given signs of Himself, visible to those who seek Him, and not to those who seek Him not. There is enough light for those who only desire to see, and enough obscurity for those who have a contrary disposition.”

Blaise Pascal

The Flame That Will Not Die

 “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be My witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”  — Acts 1

It may be the most powerful prophecy in all of scripture. From a fragile band of men and women, still reeling from the death of their Teacher, would spring a commission that has rippled across centuries like concentric circles widening on a still lake. Their voices, once whispers in the backstreets of Jerusalem, now echo in every land beneath the sun.

When Jesus taught, He painted with words the way an artist works with light and shadow. He drew fishers into the kingdom with nets of story, sowed seeds of truth in soil-hardened hearts, and lifted the weary with images of lilies and sparrows. He did not lecture coldly; He set imaginations on fire. That is why I, in my own faltering way, write through story and illustration. To reach the spirit, one must first touch the heart.

When I learned to write, I made a vow to our Creator: that my words would not merely fill pages but help souls glimpse eternity. Blaise Pascal spoke of an “infinite abyss” within us, a hollow no earthly treasure can fill. There is, indeed, a God-shaped hole in every human being. Some try to cram it with gold, with pleasure, with applause and by raising themselves by putting others down, but they remain as empty as a begger’s pocket. Only the living water of God can fill it to the brim.

So, I write not to lecture but to invite—to whisper across the void in another person’s heart, “Have you considered this? Could there be more than this life?”

And the evidence humbles me. Each day, between 3,000 and 10,000 souls pass through these pages. That is not a statistic; it is a multitude of beating hearts, searching minds, and weary spirits who sense—whether faintly or fiercely—that life cannot be reduced to chance and consumption.

For decades, the West sank into a trough of indifference, lulled by the hollow lullabies of materialism. We were told that science had slain wonder, that atheism had dethroned God, that selfishness was freedom. But those songs have grown thin. Their melodies are brittle, like cracked shells that cannot protect the life within. And so, quietly but unmistakably, people are stirring. They are climbing out of the doldrums, lifting their faces toward the light again, asking questions that pierce through cynicism.

Yet even as this awakening begins, Christianity faces storms—persecution abroad, apathy at home, and the shallow shadow of nominal faith that leaves no imprint on a life. But the same Spirit who breathed fire into fearful fishers still moves. The flame is not out; it only waits for willing hearts to carry it forward, as it has done from that first upper room to the ends of the earth.