So, a friend of mine died recently. He was young, in his mid-60s. And he was exercising, of all things, when he died of a heart attack. He was a dear man, gentle, loved the gospel of God’s grace, a pastor. He intentionally made an impact on younger men in the ministry. Whenever you would see him, he would invariably have a younger man with him, maybe two, and they would be talking—I’m sure about life and ministry and the sweet message of the gospel. He wasn’t famous—you’ve probably never heard of him—but he leaves a legacy in the lives of many.

I shared this news with a friend via e-mail. He used this sentence in his reply. “God’s timing is inscrutable.” My friend is much smarter than I am and has a far bigger vocabulary. I had an idea of what inscrutable means—it probably comes from the root for the word “scrutiny,” with the “-in” making it the opposite—but I went ahead and looked it up. Something is inscrutable if it is “incapable of being investigated, analyzed, or scrutinized.” It is mysterious, even hidden, not easily understood. My friend was right. Not only is God’s timing inscrutable, his ways are inscrutable.

I looked in several Bible versions and found that translators have used inscrutable a few times to describe God. In Isaiah 40:28, the New American Standard Bible gives us this: “The Everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth does not become weary or tired. His understanding is inscrutable.” In Romans 11:33, both the English Standard Version and the old Revised Standard Version have this: “Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways.” Inscrutable. God is inscrutable. His ways are inscrutable. His understanding is inscrutable. He is mysterious, hidden, not easily understood, incapable of being investigated or scrutinized.

Why would God take my friend? Eventually yes, but why now? He had so many years left of good ministry. He was loved and needed by so many, including his family. He was in seemingly good health. How inscrutable his ways.

There are some things we will never know. What seems right and reasonable to me may not be what God decides to do. You can’t scrutinize God, his decisions, his plans, his ways. I don’t think it is because He resists it. In fact, I think he invites investigation, scrutiny. He wants us to know him, as far as we are able to do so. And I don’t it is because it is offensive to Him. I think it is actually a delight to him that we scrutinize him, or attempt to do so. Instead, I think it is because it is impossible. We can’t put God under a microscope, we can’t test his chemical composition, we can’t take him apart like an unknown piece of machinery.

Looking into the ways of God is like looking into the sun—you can only do it for a short time. If you do it for too long, your eyes will burn up. He’s too bright, he’s too big, there is too much of him. He overwhelms. How inscrutable his ways.

I don’t think it is a matter of limitedness—if we only knew what God knows, we would do what God does. It is not quantitative; it is qualitative. He’s just different. Elsewhere Isaiah says, “His ways are not our ways, his thoughts not our thoughts.” God is not unknowable. He simply reveals to us what he desires us to know. He is knowable in what he chooses for us to know about him. When God revealed himself to Moses, Moses got to see his “backside.” The rest of God was hidden from Moses; it remained a mystery, not easily understood, inscrutable.

Again there are some things we will never know. This is why our life as a child of God is a life of faith. It is not a life of fatalism—whatever happens will happen. It is a life of believing that God is good in all that he does, even when what he does is not easily understood . . . inscrutable.