The Enigma

Proverbs 1:5-6
A wise [man] will hear, and will increase learning; and a man of understanding shall attain unto wise counsels:
To understand a proverb, and the interpretation (enigma); the words of the wise, and their dark sayings (or perplexing riddles).

Why do so few consider enigma and perplexing riddles from God a thing to receive with anticipation and delight, to study with a laser-focus intensity of all one's faculties? Here is what I mean, one for me right now:

I took a cleansing walk before a prayer meeting at church a few weeks ago. I walked into a grove of bushes, just when the setting sun made the sky gleam pale pink and blue, and the snowy ground shone as silver. The bushes in this grove where I walked were strangely iced, with an ice that appeared like frozen tear drops on the bare and slender branches. I saw this just after receiving a sense of revelation that frozen precipitation is one of Your lessons about prophecy, O God. For even as snow sits upon the earth, it's power to water the earth is merely a thing visible, and not yet something accomplished. But that the earth will know the watering is as certain as is the spring itself.

I wonder if this was on the mind of the Psalmist when he wrote:

Psa 147:15
He sendeth forth his commandment [upon] earth: his word runneth very swiftly.
Psa 147:16
He giveth snow like wool: he scattereth the hoarfrost like ashes.
Psa 147:17
He casteth forth his ice like morsels: who can stand before his cold?
Psa 147:18
He sendeth out his word, and melteth them: he causeth his wind to blow, [and] the waters flow.

I wondered if this is why God used imagery of conception with talk of frozen things when He questioned Job:
Job 38:29
Out of whose womb came the ice? and the hoary frost of heaven, who hath gendered it?
...and why He considered snow and hail to have treasures, if not the treasure of a promise waiting to be fulfilled?
Job 38:22
Hast thou entered into the treasures of the snow? or hast thou seen the treasures of the hail...

So I considered these bushes that wore their promise of tears. Some days later, I dreamed of those same bushes...a fleeting image of them razed to the ground. Only freshly-cut stumps remained--so many of them, and so narrow--a half inch maybe above ground. I do not yet know what that means...the days of the free-will of the people involved are days not yet accomplished, and I have learned that in things prophetic--as opposed to those things called psychic prediction, in these things the free will of man is a factor until the "snow melts." It is why the imagery is always so amazing and so beautiful--because no matter what man may decide to do to make that image a reality--something good or something bad--still God proves sovereign in the image. Hence the enigma. And hence the majesty and wonder in the day of revelation.

A few days later, I saw another bush, onece again with tear-drops scattered across it. But this bush was not frozen. What can I say? I walked out today to see those bushes. The tiniest buds of green burst mysteriously from their small branches. How can it be? Where was the break in the wood that made room for them?
And as I look at Psalm 80, and I think of standing there in my grove of hedges, I find myself wondering what is to be for them...and for me.


Psa 80:1
[[To the chief Musician upon Shoshannimeduth, A Psalm of Asaph.]] Give ear, O Shepherd of Israel, thou that leadest Joseph like a flock; thou that dwellest [between] the cherubims, shine forth.
Psa 80:2
Before Ephraim and Benjamin and Manasseh stir up thy strength, and come [and] save us.
Psa 80:3
Turn us again, O God, and cause thy face to shine; and we shall be saved.
Psa 80:4
O LORD God of hosts, how long wilt thou be angry against the prayer of thy people?
Psa 80:5
Thou feedest them with the bread of tears; and givest them tears to drink in great measure.
Psa 80:6
Thou makest us a strife unto our neighbours: and our enemies laugh among themselves.
Psa 80:7
Turn us again, O God of hosts, and cause thy face to shine; and we shall be saved.
Psa 80:8
Thou hast brought a vine out of Egypt: thou hast cast out the heathen, and planted it.
Psa 80:9
Thou preparedst [room] before it, and didst cause it to take deep root, and it filled the land.
Psa 80:10
The hills were covered with the shadow of it, and the boughs thereof [were like] the goodly cedars.
Psa 80:11
She sent out her boughs unto the sea, and her branches unto the river.
Psa 80:12
Why hast thou [then] broken down her hedges, so that all they which pass by the way do pluck her?
Psa 80:13
The boar out of the wood doth waste it, and the wild beast of the field doth devour it.
Psa 80:14
Return, we beseech thee, O God of hosts: look down from heaven, and behold, and visit this vine;
Psa 80:15
And the vineyard which thy right hand hath planted, and the branch [that] thou madest strong for thyself.
Psa 80:16
[It is] burned with fire, [it is] cut down: they perish at the rebuke of thy countenance.
Psa 80:17
Let thy hand be upon the man of thy right hand, upon the son of man [whom] thou madest strong for thyself.
Psa 80:18
So will not we go back from thee: quicken us, and we will call upon thy name.
Psa 80:19
Turn us again, O LORD God of hosts, cause thy face to shine; and we shall be saved.