Praise God for What We Will Never Know

“My mouth shall shew forth thy righteousness [and] thy salvation all the day; for I know not the numbers [thereof].” (Ps 71:15 AV)

For I know not the numbers thereof!  Absolutely.  The psalmist could mean the days he has left, or he could be referring to righteousness and salvation.  Either works.  The vast majority of our beloved sages understand the reference to be for the latter.  This begs a question.  Just how many things has God done for us of which we are never aware?  I imagine the righteousness of which David refers is righteous judgements on his behalf.  For the N.T. saint, we can extend this even further to include the righteousness of Christ that grows in us day by day.  The salvation of which David speaks is not limited to eternal salvation.  Rather, David is speaking of salvation from all sorts of threats.  As a king of the most powerful mid-eastern nation, no doubt he had enemies of whom he had no knowledge.  Only the LORD knows how many plots of assassination were foiled by His intervention.

We don’t know what we don’t know, but we can assume based on the character of God.  As a father, there was much from which I kept my sons.  Most of which they never had a clue.  When they were young, we lived in a neighborhood that was plagued by gangs.  To my sons, the graffiti was comical artwork.  But to those of us who were in the know, it was much more than that.  The sneakers hanging from the power lines were not an old ornament or a prank.  It meant something.  A red laser dot from an undisclosed location meant far more than a bored child who wanted to scare someone.  The worldly wise knew how to keep their eyes open for pending trouble.  Many times, I diverted my sons from a dangerous situation, and all they thought was that dad was being fun again and taking them for ice cream.  It wasn’t until they grew and became more aware that they realized what I had done all those years.  At the time, it never dawned on them that dad was saving them from harm.  To them, it was normal life.

If God is our Father and He has parental responsibilities, it stands to reason He would do no less.  Our heavenly Father in omnipresent, omniscient, and omnipotent.  He foreknows all things.  Therefore, He can see all threats that could harm us even to the smallest of detail.  It may seem as though the work of God is idle.  After all, harm comes to the saint.  We are not protected from all.  But if we assume all that we see is all that God sees, then He is not a benevolent and interceding God.  If we believe David, and by extension God, then we must assume there are far more threats in life that could cause harm than those which actual do.  Those that do cause harm are allowed by a sovereign God for our growth and benefit.  Which then naturally suggests that there are far more ills that could have come our way but never did.  Praise be to God!