10 His intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms,
I love old fashioned kaleidoscopes. You pick it up, place it against your eye, point it toward a light source and slowly rotate it. Instant, ever-changing beauty! Each moment is unique, never to be duplicated again. The more you study the colors and shapes, the more you are pulled into looking through the eyepiece. The problem with spending time looking is that it leads you nowhere. There is no wisdom, no answer to life’s questions in a kaleidoscope. But the manifold wisdom of God is not like that. The more you get to know God’s wisdom, the longer you look at Him and hear His wisdom, the more you want to look in wonder. His wisdom is multi-layered, multi-faceted, and many sided. With each turn and movement you see more of God that you didn’t know about previously. There are colors to meet every need and shapes that explain the unexplainable. The problem with us humans is that we rarely spend enough time in God’s presence just gazing at Him. We are busy asking for things and being distracted. We have our agendas and our schedules and we don’t take time to just gaze and marvel. Sin and selfishness cause us to attempt to look from a distance rather than getting in close. Sin keeps the image of God at a distance, making difficult to truly see the beauty of the wisdom. Or we take a quick glance and then retreat to a ‘safer’ position. This wisdom is so great and all-encompassing that even all the heavenly beings, those created by God to also enjoy His presence, they are taken aback by the sight. Earthly, human wisdom looks like dung in comparison. It smells like it too. And yet, we are too often satisfied with dung instead of the wisdom of God. Responding to earthly solutions requires nothing of us. We can stay the same and continue as we are. But when we look at God’s wisdom we are forced to change. We either have to draw closer to God with a more honest appraisal of ourselves ore retreat into our comfortable dung existence. Well, what is it going to be today, dung or infinite treasure? Your choice!
The Arnold Journey 