Proverbs 25:2 – Hide and seek

“It is the glory of God to conceal things, but the glory of kings is to search things out.” Proverbs 25:2 ESV

Of course a God so mighty, majestic, and creative would make things we know nothing about. He’s made all the treasures and scattered them about the universe. They may be fixed in the core of a cavernous moon, the roots of an unknown tree, or the nucleus of a cell. They rattle in instruments, they travel in lava, and they bubble in laughter. They’re hidden as far as the outermost galaxies of the universe and as close as the recesses of the human heart. 

Why hide the treasure? Why conceal such beautiful mystery?

One possibility is it seems to benefit the curious kings. A king’s glory is his weight, his worth. It’s worth the king’s while to commission a treasure hunt. Picture him shouting from the ramparts that there is a mystery for his kingdom to solve. 

How interesting it’s not the king’s glory to find what’s concealed. By His grace the maps and the sonar and the satellites and the microscopes now and then unveil what was cloaked. They’re discovered by an exhausted explorer in a vast desert, an intrepid diver in the deep sea, or a dogged biologist in a drop of blood. 

More often the magnificent stays unmagnified, for a time, and the desire to bring the unknown into the light becomes insatiable. The king hungers and thirsts for knowledge, wisdom, revelation, and beholding the real thing beyond all the verisimilar layers. He digs deep and wide with sullied nails and arthritic fingers. 

And in this seemingly fruitless search where nothing is found, a king discovers a deeper truth, that the seeking was itself a treasure. Indeed, it revealed his own fervor for truth, and drew him closer to the Divine. 

The king finds his worth in the search, thus the concealment of God proves worthy. 

What might God be concealing from you? What will you do to find it?