Unseen, Unknown

For since the beginning of the world men have not heard, nor perceived by the ear, neither hath the eye seen, O God, beside thee, what he hath prepared for him that waiteth for him. (Isaiah 64:4 KJV)

I have mentioned before that I anticipate a heavenly reunion and have requested of our Lord a picnic under the Tree of Life, beside the River of life . . .  (Revelation 22:1-2) . . . where I could reminisce with people I’ve never met – the ones who carried the gospel across the ages and finally to my ears.

However, according to Isaiah and Paul, that won’t be near enough:

But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. (1 Corinthians 2:9 KJV)

Except – that God has been revealing:

But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God. For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. (1 Corinthians 2:10-12 KJV)

Because of Jesus, whose death could not stop His message . . .

But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory: Which none of the princes of this world knew: for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. (1 Corinthians 2:7-8 KJV)

. . . we know more of God’s kingdom than we can understand. It must be accepted by faith:

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. (Hebrews 11:1 KJV)

We’ve been told in parable after parable about the kingdom of heaven. Yet we continue to seek only things here on earth. We’ve been told over and over again in God’s word that He is in control, even when the “princes of this world” “crucified the Lord of glory.”

A quote from Psychology Today, based on controlled experiments, caught my eye:

The tendency to let expectation be our guide can cause even those of us who are intelligent, experienced, and well-trained to overlook some startlingly obvious things.

One experiment used prepared x-rays. Researchers asked radiologists to search for lung cancer:

Unknown to the radiologists, though, the researchers had inserted into the x-rays a picture of something no professional would ever expect to see: a gorilla. The picture of the gorilla wasn’t tiny; it was about 45 times the size of the average cancerous lung nodule – or about the size of a matchbook in your lung.
How many of the radiologists spotted the gorilla?
Very few. Some 83 percent of the radiologists missed the gorilla – even though eye-tracking showed that most of them had looked right at it.

Delve into God’s word with a single expectation – that you will learn. Go beneath the surface of the words and learn the personal application. As I’ve said so many times before – be a Berean:

These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so. (Acts 17:11 KJV)

Search the scriptures, daily, to see whether these things are so.