There are so many things I don’t understand. I can ponder, but meaning eludes my grasp. Some are related to my daily life and don’t bother me – I don’t understand how electricity works, how my car runs, or how, when I type these words onto a computer screen, they make their way to you. Others bother me deeply. Questions about life, dreams, suffering, grief, and purpose. There are some “ponderables” that are, honestly, unponderable.
“Now we see through a glass, darkly…” (1 Corinthians 13:12).
Although we don’t like to hear it, there are parts of life that resist our understanding. Mysteries we cannot solve. Questions that stretch beyond our reach. Moments that leave us lost in wonder. Moments that leave us holding more ache than answers.
Our human nature wants answers. Why is this happening? What is God doing? When will understanding come?
But some truths can’t be rushed. Some mysteries can’t be explained. Some seasons can only be held.
Mary understood this. Standing in the middle of angels and shepherds, promises and uncertainties, she didn’t walk away with a tidy or full explanation. She walked away with something far more human: “She treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.” (Luke 2:19). She held on to what little she knew and trusted God to reveal the rest when the time was right.
There are unponderables in our lives, too. Why certain prayers wait years for answers. Why doors close without revealing what’s next.
Why the world holds so much beauty and so much pain at the same time.
We aren’t meant to figure every piece out. We are meant to bring the “unfigure-out-able” into God’s presence. Faith isn’t certainty. Faith is trust in the mystery.
Sometimes, the deepest form of faith is simply sitting with what we don’t understand, allowing God to be God and allowing ourselves not to need all the answers. The unponderables become sacred when we stop demanding explanations and start trusting. It’s certainly not easy. But what would happen if you trusted the mystery instead of fighting it?
Today, choose one unponderable—one question, ache, or uncertainty that has followed you. Instead of trying to reason through it, do something different: Lay it before God without demanding closure. Ask God for peace, not answers. Ask for trust, not clarity.
Prayer: Lord, there are mysteries in my life I can’t unravel. Teach me to hold them with humility, patience, and trust. Help me to rest in what I do not yet understand, and to believe that you are at work
even in the questions that stretch beyond my grasp. Give me grace to ponder the unponderables—not with fear, but with confidence in you. Amen.
